Killing Time - The AU No-Bashing Writer
by The AU No-Bashing Writer Alive
Summary: Ron, Ginny and Harry are the only ones left among their friends, as they fail to find the Horcruxes in time. They use a ritual to change the course of the war through time, but face a hitch. Will their efforts be enough to destroy Voldemort and stave off the war? Violence. H/H, R/LB, N/SB, GW/LL. Posted as Killing Time on previous account. Same writer. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

My first ever story. I hope the readers like it. As another fan-fiction writer has said, "There is a time travel story in every writer." There's a nod to the stories by muggledad. This story was originally posted as "Killing Time" on my old account which went by the name : The AU No-Bashing Writer. Somehow, I ended up locked out of both the fanfiction account and the associated email account. The latter refuses to comply with any attempts to access it again.

* * *

 **It's time, Harry**

The time after June 1996 had been fraught with terrors, horrors and sorrow for the Order of the Phoenix and their allies in their dogged opposition to Tom Marvolo Riddle, the self-styled Lord Voldemort. Immediately after Sirius Black's death in the ill-fated Battle of the Ministry, Voldemort, in retaliation for the defeat to Albus Dumbledore, and his inability to possess and kill Harry Potter, as well as to being brought out into the open, had attacked several major muggle and magical targets simultaneously.

The time spent in government-aided obscurity meant that Voldemort had built a massive support structure across Europe while the Ministry of Magic in England had fought against the real upstanding citizens. Using suggestions, promises, rhetoric and force, as and when, as well as where it was required, Voldemort had created a real network of his Death Eaters across the continent.

He had utilised the year in silence very well.

He firstly disposed of Amelia Bones, the one witch that could have cracked down hard on the Death Eaters. It was a duel that he relished. He then managed to insert Death Eaters into the Royal family's protective detail. It had been with exquisite ease that Voldemort had ended the line of Windsor, killing each member himself.

Having realised his fallacy in ignoring muggle means during his first rise, Voldemort had made overtures to gangs and mafia, or similar organisations. Showing power by mass destruction, he had convinced them to join him, giving them illusions of power. Those that he hadn't been able to convince, he had forced. Death threats worked just as well on hardened murderers as the next man. These muggle mercenaries had gone on to secure land tracts across their respective nations. These tracts had served as farms and factories, and warehouses and silos for all the necessities and supplies, keeping the second rise of Emperor Voldemort a smoothly functioning, well-oiled machine.

These mercenaries and the slavery and bonded labour that they enforced, had eventually degenerated into fiefdoms. Emperor Voldemort, for he had subjugated the British Isles, the erstwhile USSR, northern Africa and central Europe in that order, was the one that 'awarded' his 'knights' and 'lords of the peerage' that he had modelled these people and their activities on. So long as the monies and riches went Emperor Voldemort's way, there was little that he deigned to interfere in, in their daily matters. They were left to their devices, the 'filthy' muggles in their 'filthy' sties. They were only useful for menial work and labour. Any revolt was ruthlessly crushed. Feudalism had reigned supreme for the first decade.

And yet, the Emperor had not stopped there. Knowing that keeping the muggles under flux was the only way in which they could be subdued, he had allowed one revolt. This revolt had culminated into the rise of neo-communism, with one leader for the feudal states. This had proved all the more pliable for Voldemort, much to his amusement. The idolised leader was made to bow, and bow he had when his baser sins had been addressed. The 'revolution' had lasted a grand total of three years, after which, it was a communist-run anarchy that replaced the opposing ideology, but not the anarchy itself.

The response to the Empire of Voldemort was the unexpected unification of the rising Asian powers, at least over the matter. In a rare show of unity, China, India, South Korea and Japan had given political asylum to much of Europe. Both Magical and Muggle governments had created safe havens for the crushed people of Europe. Among the other continents, the Americas had decided to be neutral, choosing to keep themselves out of the conflict. Australia had offered non-aggressive help.

All that ended when the Empire attacked the oil rich Middle East. Starved of energy to fuel their growth, Asia had been brought to her knees, while the Americas had to go without and were taken under the banner of the Empire without even a whimper. Australia had given token resistance – till nuclear weapons had been dispatched to decimate the continent completely.

Voldemort's utilisation of muggles in his quest for absolute power had raised eyebrows amongst his magical followers. There were whispers regarding the Dark Lord's newfound attitude towards muggles. Questions were asked in conversations behind closed doors. No one dares to really ask the question to Voldemort himself for the longest time.

Finally Augustus Selwyn had done so near the end of the first year of the reign.

 _"_ _Milord, if I may be so bold, may I have leave to ask a question?"_

 _"_ _Speak, Augustus. You have Our leave."_

 _"_ _Milord, have we failed you in some way? Why is it that muggles are your hands of choice?"_

 _Voldemort smiled a grim lipless smile. Well, 'smile' was the nearest description possible. The thin white line curved upwards anyway._

 _"_ _Have you experienced the efficiency of those little beasts, Selwyn?"_

 _"_ _I have seen it, Milord," Selwyn admitted._

 _"_ _But you haven't experienced it, Selwyn?" The monster's voice was soft, curious and silky._

 _"_ _No, Milord."_

 _"_ _That's such a pity. Fortunately that can be easily remedied."_

 _A few moments later, the emptied magazine of a handgun had turned Augustus Selwyn into a human block of cheese that had yet to come to terms with the fact that it was dead._

 _"_ _Is there anyone else that expects answers from me?"_

There had never been another voice of dissent after that. It had, however, led to more vicious killings by the Death Eaters. Someone on the opposite side had had the idea of enchanting the guns and other assorted weaponry to shoot spells with a trigger. Unfortunately, those plans fell into the hands of the enemy. While the Order never found out about the innovation, Emperor Voldemort did. He awarded Theodore Nott handsomely for that piece of information. It did, after all, help in the running of his Realm.

By 2010, about twenty four years after the war was brought out into the open, Emperor Voldemort was the undisputed magical and muggle ruler of the earth, omnipotent and immortal.

* * *

This was not to say, though, that there weren't any attempts at normalcy by common people. There were many, in fact.

The members of the Ministry six, found love – in the case of Luna and Ginny, with each other. It had been a very big surprise. Harry and the Weasley brothers, who had grown as close as real brothers were gearing up for the next boy Ginny would date, practising for the torrid time they would give him. There had been no inkling of _that_ relationship, though. Ginny had dated Michael Corner, Zacharias Smith and Dean Thomas briefly, before the fight of the Ministry, having feared her family's reaction to her real self. In a quirk of irony, she had wanted to be normal and not freakish in the eyes of her family, and had found an anchor in her hero-worship of Harry, which she had been able to pass off as a crush. Luna had already been classified as a person who wasn't all there, in spite of her brilliance and her endearing nature. She was already considered to be a freak and unnatural by many. It was actually her reaction to what she saw as Ginny's rejection. The very attraction that the two witches held for the other was why they had drifted away in the first place.

The fight at the Ministry had driven home the shortness of life to them. They had ended up confessing to the other and crying their eyes out. Indeed, it had been Hermione who had first found out about the two. It had been a very scary moment for the two younger witches.

 _Hermione, on her Prefect rounds, had chanced upon a classroom where two girls were presumably crying. Perhaps, in another world where Voldemort never existed, she would have rolled her eyes at students sneaking out after curfew and crying over 'boy problems'. Unfortunately, the problems tended to be graver. It wasn't unusual for her and her fellow prefects to chance upon students with family problems, having trouble coping with the aftermaths of deaths in the attacks on their homes, or not having homes at all. There had even been instances of pressure and blackmail. She opened the door slightly to reveal two of her best friends crying in each others' arms._

 _Fearing that someone had attacked them or worse and getting angry about it at the same time, she approached the two quietly, only to be shocked as Luna grabbed Ginny and kissed her passionately. Hermione stood nonplussed as she saw the scene._

 _When he kiss broke and they glanced around, they froze, as one._

 _After a very excruciatingly painful silence for the two, Ginny attempted to speak. "I-It isn't what it looks like, Hermione!"_

 _Unfortunately, that had only led to the revelation of another of her secrets, this one more closely guarded. In times of distress, she switched to Parseltongue, a holdover from her time under Tom's possession._

 _"_ _Ginny?" Hermione had asked a bit fearfully. "I can't understand a word that you are speaking."_

 _"_ _She is saying that it isn't what it looked like," Luna explained, though her words held a world of hurt._

 _"_ _How'd you know?"_

 _"_ _The Nargles told me," Luna replied, slipping into her dotty persona._

 _Hermione shook her head at that. "It doesn't matter to me, Ginny, Luna. Honestly it doesn't. Dumbledore did say that it was the power of love that will defeat You-Know-Who. It isn't for me to judge who you find love with – well, unless you find love with Malfoy or someone like that," she added, trying for some levity. "If you have found it with each other, I will support you."_

 _"_ _You don't – you aren't disgusted?" Luna had asked, her expression clearing a bit._

 _"_ _No," Hermione had firmly replied. "You are both my friends! I won't abandon you!"_

 _Luna had a fleeting but very heartfelt expression of gratitude on her face as she rushed up to hug the older girl. Hermione returned the hug._

 _"_ _What about my family, my brothers, and the others?" Ginny had asked in a small voice._

 _"_ _They love you, Ginny. They will accept you."_

 _"_ _They won't think of me as a freak?"_

 _Hermione had not answered immediately. "Do you mind if I told Harry about it?"_

 _Ginny shrank further into herself. Luna asked with affected equanimity, "Why?"_

 _"_ _Harry knows what it is like to be called a freak, because as a wizard he is different from the muggles. He will be able to help you better, and he will also be able to convince the Weasleys better as well." Upon the looks of understanding that she received, Hermione had added a rider, "At least, I think he'll be able to."_

 _The three girls had stared at each other for a long moment, before the couple acquiesced._

 _"_ _Thank you, Hermione."_

 _Her response was to gather the girls in a group hug and then tease, "Just use the Silencing Charms, alright?"_

It had proven to be a piece of cake for Hermione to convince Harry. Harry being Harry had immediately rushed to offer his support and promise to talk to the Weasleys when the time came. He had also ribbed Luna, by attempting to torment her with the, "You treat her right, or else!" threat.

He had to be rushed to the Hospital Wing to undo Ginny's Bat Bogey Hex.

* * *

Neville had been comforting Susan since the death of Amelia Bones. As the lone Bones left, she had a very hefty responsibility on her shoulders. Their closeness culminated into a much deeper relationship. This was not to say that he became exempt from the pranks and teasing by his friends. He grew closer with them as well, becoming a vital cog in their own group, a part of the golden members of their generation that was destined to fight Voldemort when his reign became "more terrible than ever before".

Lavender, in a surprise move, had decided that Ron was now worthy of her attention. While the friends were apprehensive about the sudden change in behaviour, they eventually accepted her. She had simply drawn out her inner Gryffindor, and snagged Ron upon his entry into the tower for the Gryffindor House Welcoming Party with a searing kiss.

Ron's goofy smile did not vanish for days together.

* * *

The two other members of the Ministry Six were brought together by a school-full of frustrated people, headed by their best mate.

Having decided that enough was enough, and having also realised that his bet in the Hogwarts-wide pool that was to answer the question "When will Harry and Hermione wake up start dating each other?" was approaching fast, Ron Weasley had set his two friends up on a date, leaving them to their own devices, on the first Hogsmeade weekend of their sixth year. It incidentally was the weekend just before Halloween. Harry and Hermione had ended up kissing each other within an inch of their lives on Halloween, smack bang in the Gryffindor Common Room. Ron's overenthusiastic whoops of celebration at having won three thousand seven hundred and ninety eight galleons had brought Minerva McGonagall rushing to the Gryffindor tower. It was bad timing for the cat animagus – she went away poorer by eighteen galleons, having bet on Christmas.

Those incidents were some of the bright spots for the 'Light'. However, they were about as effective as a single firefly in the mines of Moria.

* * *

On the other fronts, there was a lot of work going on. As promised, Dumbledore had come through and made the DA a sanctioned school group. However, he still wouldn't meet Harry's eyes, something that bothered the boy very much. It wasn't until much later that he understood his headmaster's motivation.

The DA was shaping along nicely. Each of the members had been classed as good enough to fight a Death Eater till help came, by the Professors. They had also included alternative fighting techniques, grey curses, aerial fights (which meant learning broom-riding, much to Ron's glee and Hermione's dismay) and the like.

A new and very important stipulation was Oath and Vow required from the members to state that they would never join Voldemort willingly. Knowing that they could fall under duress, they had been given an engraved amulet not quite unlike the Dark Mark, which would be used to call in help.

It had worked out well, initially. But the Death Eaters had soon cottoned on, and started to remove the amulets at the first available chance at first. These removed amulets were used to bait the DA to kill the members.

Eventually that plan failed as well.

The night at the end of the Autumn/Winter term of their sixth year, when Harry learnt the reason for Dumbledore's reticence regarding the contact with his prophesied student, had started an unnecessary crack in their relationship which cost the 'Light' a lot.

In all fairness, Dumbledore had called Harry, and by association his core group of friends that night to explain the ways that Voldemort had lived: Horcruxes. Dumbledore was unwilling to commit the information to Harry, rightly fearing that Voldemort could just as well rip it out of the boy's mind.

What Dumbledore had not counted on was for the slightly antagonistic feelings that the secrets had engendered towards him. Trust Hermione Granger to know that Legillimency didn't work the way Voldemort used it. She had divined the truth that the curse scar was more than that, though she hadn't really understood _what_ it was.

When Dumbledore had revealed what Harry's scar really was, her anger had known no bounds.

 _With a most venomous lilt to her voice, Hermione had hissed, "Did you mean to kill my Harry, Headmaster?"_

 _Dumbledore blinked at her tone, and smiled at her use of the possessive pronoun. "Indeed not, Ms. Granger. I've been working on a way to extract the splinter of Tom's cleaved soul from Harry without harming him."_

 _"_ _Why now?"_

 _"_ _What do you mean?"_

 _"_ _You must have known for long," Hermione accused. "You did say to Harry after he had fought the basilisk that Riddle transferred a part of his powers that night back in 1981," she continued, throwing his words back at him. "It wasn't his powers, but a part of Tom himself, wasn't it?"_

 _Dumbledore looked at the irate witch facing him down. At long last, he answered, "Yes. It is true."_

 _"_ _Then why?" In two words, laced with disappointment and a feeling of betrayal, both Harry and Hermione had managed to articulate the question that everyone else was asking without words._

 _Dumbledore couldn't face them at that moment. He faced the grounds darkening under the failing light of dusk. "I have more than just Harry to think of, Ms. Granger. I was of the belief that it could prove to be a strategic asset for us." He turned to the students slightly and surveyed them all in turn. "It was most fortuitous. A peek into Voldemort's mind, a monitor upon his actions, a way to understand him through what he did that we couldn't see... Don't you see how I became greedy, wanting to utilise this resource? Can't you, Mr. Weasley, Ms. Weasley? It did save Arthur, after all."_

 _A resource. That was how he had viewed Harry – not as a person, but as a resource. For the person in question and the people directly connected to him, it was a blow, never mind the fact that intellectually, what Dumbledore said was right in a very warped sense._

 _Ron, with all his fiery Weasley temper and bluster had countered the Headmaster with a sneer, "Don't try that line with us, sir! You haven't had to see Harry looking like he was being tortured by invisible people for hours on end, each time he sees the deeds that that monster commits! With all due respect, sir, I don't think Dad would very much appreciate the price for his safety to be paid by Harry."_

 _It had been the moment which had defined Ron that moment onwards._

 _Dumbledore surveyed them all over his half-moon glasses. "You have good friends, Harry Potter. Keep them close." He then drew his wand. "I recently decided that it was causing our side more harm than good, what with the way he lured Harry into the Ministry..."_

 _"_ _Which could have been avoided if you hadn't clung to your secrets," cut in Luna._

 _"_ _Indeed. Don't try to absolve yourself of your part of the blame sir," Neville chastised his Headmaster._

 _Dumbledore nodded his head to concede the point. "True, indeed. So I have spent the summer looking for a viable way to purge it out of Harry. And I am happy to say that I have found a way that doesn't involve killing Harry."_

 _It had been a runic exorcism ritual, which had told them the items and the number as well as the murders associated with Voldemort's Soul Anchors, though not their hiding places. His wand, which he had since taken back from Wormtail, Gryffindor's war helmet and the lost sheath of the Sword of Gryffindor, Slytherin's Locket and Ring, Ravenclaw's shield, Hufflepuff's bejewelled quill, and the Diary which Harry had destroyed in his second year. The Monster had decided to split his soul into nine. And he had killed newborn babies to facilitate the vile ritual._

 _"_ _Perhaps," said Susan at long last, "You have made a big mistake, Professor. You've found more information by freeing Harry than by exposing him to that monstrosity."_

 _Looking every bit his hundred and sixty eight years of age and severely drained, Dumbledore agreed._

While that meeting gave them the secret to defeating Voldemort once and for all, it also signified the fracture of the relationship between the two disparate generations of fighters. The youngsters lost trust in Dumbledore, in spite of his efforts, while Dumbledore found them to be immature – it wasn't as if anyone knew that the purging would give them that information.

The younger generation worked their way, deciding that the war couldn't be won without evening the odds in their favour, while Dumbledore worked to eliminate the Horcruxes. Neither was very successful.

While the idea to eliminate the Death Eaters was alright in theory, they found out that they were too shielded to bear the cross. Of them all, only Harry had ever taken a life in self-defence. This meant that they looked to him to lead them, and he was often at loss, something that frustrated all of them.

Dumbledore tried to find the Horcruxes, but there were more false leads per Horcrux than the hair in his beard. Voldemort had, in anticipation of someone (Dumbledore) realising what he had done, set up several decoy locations. He had had to fight through their ranks, using memory charms as well sometimes, only to reach a fake.

It took time, but eventually each faction developed a grudging respect for the other. Dumbledore had to eventually call in a support force comprised of Order members, which eventually included the core group of Harry and Hermione, Neville and Susan, Ron and Lavender, and Ginny and Luna, as soon as they reached their respective adulthoods. Dumbledore saw it as his greatest failure that the parents of six of the eight had fought in the previous war, and yet their children had had to fight as well.

* * *

Towards the end of the seventh year, the worst thing that could have happened did happen. Severus Snape turned. The spy decided that he was done supporting the losing side, and announced his betrayal spectacularly by murdering Dumbledore.

It had turned the slowly, but surely turning wheels of the war squarely into Voldemort's favour. That night, many students, newly free from the exams had escaped Hogwarts. Ditching Grimmauld Place, which had now been placed under a Fidelius Charm with Hermione as the secret-keeper (and where they had found the locket which had since been destroyed), the Order had chosen the now closed Hogwarts as their headquarters.

The attacks by Voldemort were fast and furious, and soon, all that was left of the British Muggleborn students and their families (including the Grangers) was the contingent that called Hogwarts home. Remus and Nymphadora Tonks, as well as their baby, Teddy took residence in the castle. The couple took over the day-to-day administration of what had essentially become a self-contained village.

They could no longer concentrate on the Horcruxes, as there simply were too many to fight. Each of the couples among the core eight had married within the first two years of the war, and had set up their own safe houses and protections.

They started working apart from the Order, which while accepting the need to kill, had shied away from actual raids. In the first eight years, they had accounted for nearly four gross Death Eaters between them, but like Hydra, they kept on coming. By this time, Hermione, Susan and Lavender had fallen pregnant with their first children, respectively. They were then assigned to the duty of dissembling and decoding the intelligence.

In that time, the Order, now comprising of Kingsley, Minerva, Moody, the Weasleys, the erstwhile DA (twenty of the twenty three living members – Cho Chang, Alicia Spinnet and Dean Thomas helped Remus administrate Hogwarts), Remus and Dora, and some Aurors that the three original Auror members of the Order had managed to break away had become the last things standing between Voldemort and the inevitable oncoming annihilation.

Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, Parvati Patil, and Hannah Abbott, four of the original twenty eight that hadn't managed to turn up had been found in 'Entertainment Houses'. They hadn't even left out Slytherin, pureblood girls. Hannah had begged her best friend to free her from the misery. Susan had had to kill Hannah along with Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass. She never killed again, till another tragedy sent her over the edge.

The losses had started mounting to such levels that Harry wished for the comfort that knowing things would've brought. Not for the first time, he muttered an apology to his dead headmaster.

It was in 2014, that tragedy struck hard and fast. On a routine mission, they had lost Neville. Snape had killed him. It didn't matter that they got all three Malfoys in that raid. Neville was dead, leaving behind Alexander, Franklin and Rhapsody, his three children. Susan had never been the same again. She went over the edge, killing and torturing without any compunction. Ironically, it had been Bellatrix that had killed her, just six months after Neville's death. Susan had managed to kill the bitch in the process however, and had died with a manic grin on her face.

Ron, Harry and Ginny had soldiered on, becoming the three-member strike team that rotated with Fred, George and Lee Jordan. The latter three were caught in a magical blast, killing them instantly, leaving the two Weasleys and Harry as the only remaining strike team, after Fleur had been kidnapped and sold, and Bill had been torn apart by Fenrir Greyback.

A Sunday brunch at the Burrow while the three were on a mission, proved to be disastrous. Peter Pettigrew had led an assault on the Burrow. Arthur, Molly and Charlie Weasley, Hermione, Daniel Sirius and Michael Dennis, and Luna Eleanor Potter, the three Longbottom children, Ron's sons, Fabian and Gideon and Lavender as well as Luna had all been killed. When the strike team had returned, they had been faced with an army of Inferi. That day, the three had to kill their own family all over again. That night, the three cried their lives away.

After that the three became machines. They took down as many of the muggle and magical Death Eaters as they could, but everyone around them knew that it was a lost cause. They were losing. They had long gone past hope, and had now fallen to desperation.

* * *

"I wish we had Hermione's time turner," Ron remarked in an offhand manner.

"And what?" Ginny asked her brother.

"I'd just go back to before Voldemort ever came back. Bring back everybody."

"That time turner would've done nothing Ron," Ginny replied, resisting the urge to snap at her brother. She was not heartless enough to take away his air-castles as well.

"He's got a point Gin," Harry remarked suddenly.

"What point?"

"Bringing everyone back."

"Harry we have lost. It's done. We've lost everyone!" she shrieked at her friend. "It's not as if they have made Horcruxes."

"No! Daft woman, I am talking about going back in time!"

Harry could see the spark in Ron's eyes just as he had seen years ago when they would embark on a new adventure.

"Those time turners that Minnie had couldn't travel more than a few hours back, you fools!"

"We will find other ways then," Ron retorted. Then in a fair imitation of his other best friend, he announced, "To the library!"

And they had immersed themselves into it. Hermione would have been proud of the way that they kept at it. They studied the vagaries of time, they studied rituals, and they studied enough to make a rudimentary time turner of their own. It was to not much avail. Still the two were relentless. For Ron, ditching food, his musings and his moping for hi lost family and friends, for books was sacrilege. He did that. For Harry, leaving the outside world to Voldemort's mercy was a crime. He did that as well.

Everyone in the castle attempted to stop them from what was perceived as their madness. Attempts were made to drag them away. Ron, in a very furious moment did something Hermione hadn't managed. He apparated within Hogwarts, straight to the library.

It was in August of 2015 that they found it. After repeated failures as they searched among the light books, they diverged to the darker ones. All spells were based on some sort of forcible sacrifice or murder. It didn't matter. There was nothing that could bother them anymore; they had already lost everything. There was little that could faze them now.

That particular ritual required the sacrifice of as many people as they wished to go back in time to. This was because each magical person's life was tied to their magic. After much deliberation they had decided that the time after they had found Riddle's diary was the best. It was the best opening to coax Dumbledore to go after the Horcruxes, and to purge Harry's scar when he would give Dumbledore the information regarding the other seven intentionally made pieces.

They had decided upon September 1993, at the start of their third year. That was a twenty two year travel. So the two set about capturing twenty two Death Eaters who'd be the sacrifices.

On the autumnal equinox, they decided that Harry being the one with more raw power would perform the ritual, with Ron and Ginny initiating it. Remus and Dora came to meet Harry one last time.

"Save Padfoot, cub," Remus requested.

"Must you ask, Moony?"

"Get them, Uncle Harry," Teddy asked of his godfather. He also left the man with a pearl of wisdom. "Bugger the timeline. Just stop the war before it ever comes."

Harry exchanged a grin with his best mate. They had decided to do just that.

Arranging the twenty two Imperiused Death Eaters on eleven points of the twenty four pointed star, with Ron and Ginny standing at opposite ends, Harry stood at the focal centre, gritting himself for what was to come. Would the ritual fail, he would find solace with his angel and the children.

"Shall we, then?" Ginny asked resignedly.

"Yes of course," Harry replied with a grand grin.

Ginny started her part of the incantation, followed by Harry, and then Ron. A wave of energy surrounded them, like a stopwatch showing the time elapsed.

And then the plan went down the drain. They never really should have gotten Snape, but it was really a matter of revenge. He broke through Ginny's Imperius and moved out of the field just as the incantation was about to be completed. Angrily, he charged towards Harry, and Ron moved to support his friend on reflex when the ritual culminated and the world blew apart.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Return**

" _Expelliarmus_!" he yelled — except that his wasn't the only voice that shouted. There was a blast that made the door rattle on its hinges; Snape was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, then slid down it to the floor, a trickle of blood oozing from under his hair. He had been knocked out.

* * *

And then Harry screamed. A massive flux of memories, emotions, fears and thoughts flooded into the boy. He clutched at his head and screamed and screamed. Whatever had happened to him was not normal, Harry knew. But then again, when _was_ his life normal?

* * *

As the flux receded, he felt another presence within him, a presence that seemed both foreign and familiar. It was the consciousness of the Harry of the future, of the world _he_ had just destroyed.

Behind him, he heard the voice of an angel. It was a beautiful voice, one that he had craved to hear for quite some time now, and one that he was very much familiar with at the same time. That voice was currently shrill out of anger and worry. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?" Hermione shrieked at Black. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

On his part Sirius was staring at his screaming godson in worry. What had happened to Harry? Did he have recurring bouts of migraines? Were his memories modified? Such headaches were sure signs of the blocks breaking down.

While all this drama was taking place, within Harry, there was a tumult as the two consciousnesses warred for control. Finally the physical Harry acquiesced to the older consciousness' command. "Stun Wormtail!" the other Harry ordered. "We have to free Sirius!" Harry duly stunned the writhing rat with a red bolt of magic.

 _"_ _Cede control for some time, please!"_

Harry did that. And then he levelled his wand at the prone form of Severus Snape. Harry was worried. Did Snape piggyback into the past by botching the ritual? Would he restart the war? Would he kill Neville all over again? He decided to take decisive action.

"AVADA – " he started, but was disarmed by Remus tackling him.

"Geroff Moony! That piece of shite killed Neville and helped kill Padfoot! He is Voldemort's man! Lemme kill him Moony!"

This tirade shocked everyone in the room into a stunned silence.

"Pup?" called Sirius cautiously, in his raspy voice.

Harry looked at him warily for a second, the two parallel tracks of thought warring within him, one unsure and one overflowing with guilt, sorrow and happiness at seeing the man. Then he flew at Sirius Black and wrapped him in the tightest hug possible. Turning around, he saw Ron lying on the bed, his leg broken. Hermione was looking at him with wide eyes. He then saw the rat lying on the ground, unmoving by Moony's feet. Unbidden the tears came.

"You are alive!" he rasped, shaking with sobs. "You are all alive!"

He first pointed his wand at Ron, though his hand was still shaking, and with a less-than-firm "Ferrula!" which caused Ron to hiss momentarily in pain and then look at his friend in shock, trussed up the redhead's leg. Then he gave the boy a (very manly) hug.

"You did it Ron! Even though you won't remember it, you bloody did it!" he yelled half in jubilation.

Ron exchanged a worried glance with Sirius Black of all people.

Harry was unmindful. He hugged Hermione very tightly instead, murmuring, "You are alive, my angel! You are alive, love, you're alive! You are alive, my beautiful Minnie!" as he refused to let go. Hermione couldn't understand where all this had come from, but his loving embrace was causing her to feel all sorts of tingly things up and down her spine and her stomach to perform somersaults. That was until he drew back, green eyes shining with tears.

For Harry, it was nearly a year since he had last seen the woman he loved alive and well. It was nearly a year since he had had to burn her undead body as she approached him as an inferius. He couldn't stop himself as he whispered, "Merlin! I missed you! Don't ever leave me again!" He had to stop himself from kissing her within an inch of her sanity.

On her part Hermione simply couldn't understand the depth of emotion Harry was showing. What had happened to him to make him so affectionate towards her?

Harry spied the skies darkening even as he turned away from Hermione with a sniffle. Years of taking several things on board simultaneously meant he was very well aware of the situation he was in. "Moony?" he called.

"Yes cub?"

"You haven't taken your potion today. Go. I'll handle things here. Stay in your office. Send a Patronus as soon as you reach there. Do not come onto the grounds. There will be lots of soul-sucking going on here."

Remus blanched and rushed off.

Sirius decided that he'd had enough. "Will someone tell me what exactly is going on here?"

Still staring at Harry, Hermione answered. "Believe me, Mr. Black, I am just as unsure as you are."

Presently, Harry decided to really handle the situation first. Returning the wand Sirius had questionably procured, he asked his godfather a favour. "Conjure a shackling chair, will you Padfoot? Our esteemed friends here need to be asked a few questions."

Sirius could make neither head nor tail of the situation, but decided to follow Harry's lead for the time being.

Settling Snape onto the chair, Harry first shackled him and bound him for good measure. It was only then that he revived the man.

Snape had barely been conscious for two moments when he sneered at the people in the room. "POTTER!" he shouted. "I'LL HAVE YOU EXPELLED FOR THIS, YOU LITTLE BRAT!"

His tirade was cut off as Harry (relieved by the fact that Snape had not regained those memories, if his first concern was getting Harry expelled) socked him in the jaw and then shook his hand almost involuntarily with a sound of disgust, muttering "Oily! So oily!"

"POTTER!" shouted Snape again.

"Oh, shut up Snivellus! You haven't realised, I think, that you are at _my_ mercy, at the mercy of a _Potter_ , once more in the _Shrieking Shack_ as a _Potter_ saves the skin of a _Black_! Learn to shut up for once!"

For all his traitorous faults, Snape was not a fool. He realised something – there really was something wrong with Potter.

"Now," Harry continued, "since these will be your last few hours on this plane of existence before you quite literally go to hell, you will answer my questions."

Severus was slightly shocked by Potter's presumption and cheek. There was a slight interruption as Remus' wolf informed them that he was secure.

"However, I know for a fact that you will not be so easy to break, so I shall take certain steps. Dobby!"

The enthusiastic house-elf materialised to Harry's side. "The Great Harry –"

"I am pleased to meet you too, Dobby, but right now, I need a little help," Harry commanded firmly.

"Yes sir, Harry Potter!" Dobby accepted shrilly with a military salute.

"Good! I need you to fetch the Sword of Gryffindor from wherever it currently is. Handle it carefully and remember to not touch the blade under any circumstances. Test that it is the correct sword by taking it near any spider – it will run away. After that, I need you to fetch the vial of Phoenix tears – no; make it two vials of Phoenix tears from the Potion Masters cabinet. Then go directly to Madam Pomfrey and fetch a pepper-up potion. Can you do that?"

"Yes sir." The elf promptly popped off.

"And now we wait," said Harry with a smile.

Three minutes later Dobby popped in with his cargo. "Thank you Dobby. You have been most kind. If I could bother you further, could you please summon Amelia Bones? Tell her that Harry Potter has the betrayer of the Potters with him, but not to bring along the dementors. She will also need a legal notarisation regarding exoneration. Also tell her expressly to not mention this to the Minister."

Dobby repeated his instructions and popped off again.

Harry retrieved the small bottle of the potion and handed it to Sirius after lacing it liberally with Phoenix tears – an entire vial, in fact. Sirius drank it without question. Whatever it was, the Pup was helping him, certainly.

"Now, Snivellus, tell me who you really serve."

Snape sneered at him. "You will regret this Potter!" he hissed.

"Wrong answer!" sang Harry, and nicked his hand with the blade. Immediately the place where Harry had cut him started turning black and blue as the poison started spreading.

"What have you done?" Snape asked in shock.

"Answer my question first, Snivellus."

By now, the man was losing the control of his tongue and knew that Potter would kill him with impunity. "Dha Dzaak Lol!"

"Hmm. I should let you die, but I have a few more questions to ask, so..." he placed a miniscule drop of Phoenix Tears on the nick and one on the man's tongue.

"YOU!"

"SHH!" Harry shushed him sharply. "You are going to die, Snape. I know what you really are. Next question. Tell me, did Voldemort tell you to guard something within the castle?"

"I won't tell y-AAAH!" Harry had nicked him again.

"Don't you learn, Death Eater?" Harry asked incredulously as Snape started losing muscle control again. When the man wouldn't answer, Harry flicked a drop of the Tears into each of his eyes, curing his eyesight, and depriving Snape of it simultaneously.

Severus had no respite. "Yeth!"

"Where is it?"

"Sheber o' seegets!"

"Is it now?" He withdrew another drop of Tears and put it tantalisingly close to Severus' wound. "Tell the truth Snivellus."

"Issh id da shebber dab id!"

Harry tilted the hand so that the tear flowed onto the wound healing it.

"Did you follow Ginny Weasley into the Chamber last year?"

"No." Severus was now answering without protest. "I wasn't sure whether I'd get out if I got in."

"Good answer. Now, goodbye." He pointed his wand at the Potions Master and stunned him. "I will not miss you when the Dementors accidentally kiss you later, Snivellus."

Harry happily turned to the others in the room.

Predictably, Hermione was the first to fire of her questions. "Harry what was that? Why were you crying? What is going on? Why are you going to have Snape accidentally kissed? Why did you hug Sirius Black? What is it with the rat?"

Harry was still amused with the way the girl who'd go on to be his wife spoke and with how much she could speak in one breath. "I will give you an overview. That rat is Peter Pettigrew. Next year, he and Bartemius Crouch Junior would put me into the Triwizard Tournament to use my blood to resurrect Voldemort. There was a very big war that started. We lost. We lost heavily. Sirius dies two years from now – Bellatrix killed him. This vermin here, Peter, killed mine and Ron's family, and Luna Lovegood, as well as Neville's kids. Snape killed Neville in 2014 and Dumbledore in 1998."

"Pup/Harry?" gasped Sirius, Ron and Hermione.

"You've travelled back in time?"

"Yes. One of me has."

"One of you?"

"This fucker here," he explained, pointing at Snape, "was one of the people Ron, Ginny and I had Imperiused to serve as sacrifice. He broke the Imperius – never was Gin's best spell by the way, but she does throw a mean Avada Kedavra, you know – and botched up the ritual Ron and I had found out. Somehow that sent that Harry's consciousness to me as well. The plan was to just send my memories." Harry blinked once he had offloaded that information. "Fuck. That's so twisted!"

"Language!" chastised Hermione automatically.

"I'd scold you too, pup," Sirius started and Harry completed, "but that would make you a hypocrite."

"That I'd be," Sirius replied with a grin. He felt lighter since he had been given the Tears.

"So, let me get this straight, you are from 2015 _and_ from 1994," Ron summarised sceptically.

"Yep. Just so you could be convinced, I was told to tell you that you are still scared of the moment when the Egyptian Sphinx turned and looked at you."

"What? How'd you know that? I never told you!"

"Exactly! You told me that on the Autumnal Equinox day of 2015."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did we do that?"

Harry sobered up. "As I said, Peter led an army of Death Eaters into the Burrow. He killed our families and turned them all into Inferi. I had to burn my children's and wife's bodies, as had you. Then we had to burn the Inferi made from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's bodies, Gin's partner's body, Charlie's body...so fucking many. You, Ginny and I were the only ones left."

Ron's face turned ashen at that, but Hermione was still not convinced. "Nobody can travel back in time."

"So you aren't wearing a time turner on a necklace?" Harry asked innocently. Hermione only opened and closed her mouth like a fish.

"Fine!"

Harry just smirked.

They waited patiently for Dobby to turn up with Amelia Bones when they started to feel the cold.

"Dementors," Sirius hissed as he started shaking.

"Wuss!" Harry taunted, and summoned Prongs inside the room. As the stag pranced around, Harry rolled Severus Snape out into the grounds exposing him to the dementors while stunned. It was done with the full knowledge that the dementors would wine and dine on his soul. Harry watched the gruesome scene using a window charm. "So much for the treacherous bastard," he sighed.

"Harry!" Hermione rebuked when he returned. Well that was an understatement. "You basically murdered him!"

"I did. So? He murdered Neville, Hermione. They sent us his head, then his torso, then his limbs, one at a time. That is what Snape is. Or was. He was a murderer, plain and simple. I will not waste my morals on such things. You heard him now. He is Voldemort's man through and through. That, right there is one Death Eater less. You'll understand the true extent of the horrors when you see my memories. Then you will wish that it had been you that killed Snape."

Staring at her friend was all she could do. What had they done to him in the future?

Turning to the rat, Harry forced the snivelling piece of vermin into his human form and tied him into the chair after several stunners.

Ron could only goggle at the man that had lived as his pet. "We let him into Gin's room as a prank!"

"Don't worry. We checked in the future. He did nothing to her."

Ron could only sigh in relief.

At long last, Amelia came. Or to be precise, Dobby kidnapped her and set her in front of Pettigrew.

"That's Peter Pettigrew!" she exclaimed.

"We happen to know that, Your Grace," Padfoot said with a theatrical bow.

"Sirius Black!" Amelia automatically brought out her wand to bear.

"Expelliarmus!" was the firm rebuke from Harry as she was disarmed. Wagging a finger at her, he scolded, "You don't get to do that, Your Grace. You have failed in your duty to uphold justice. My innocent godfather got no trial. Now you will arrange a trial tomorrow for both of these people. This will be done at breakfast tomorrow. You will bring the Minister and your top Aurors tomorrow in a surprise visit. You will not let anyone know about it beforehand. The trial will not move out of Hogwarts. I shall be the executioner tomorrow for Peter Pettigrew, as is my right. Am I clear?"

"Mr. Potter..." Lady Bones started with a frown.

"Am I clear Madam? This is non-negotiable. You say no and I will personally ensure that the Ministry falls. The Blacks are an Ancient and Noble House in their own right, and I am not beneath using the Boy-Who-Lived card in this case."

"Is that a threat?"

"Take it as you will. Sirius has been denied justice, either wilfully or through neglect. You have placed yourself in a poor position through your lax attitude as well. It was your duty to ensure that the prisoners in Azkaban all had trials. You failed. You are just as big a **_failure_** as the morally and financially corrupt Cornelius Fudge," he sneered at her. The Susan he knew would have hammered him into oblivion for speaking to her aunt that way. "Don't worry. He won't be the Minister for long," he added.

"Very well. It will be as you say." Amelia couldn't protest. She _had_ failed.

"Thank you, Your Grace. I can understand the precarious position I've put you in. However, you might not know that due to his dabbling in Necromancy, Voldemort is not dead."

Amelia turned her head so fast, she nearly had whiplash.

"Yes. I shall explain everything soon. There was also a _real_ prophecy made to me by Sybil Trelawney today that a servant of his will set out to seek him. We have ensured Severus Snape has been kissed, and that Peter Pettigrew will die tomorrow at my hands. We shall speak at length soon."

In one of the rudest things he had ever had Dobby do, he ordered the elf to pop Amelia back to her home.

"Minnie, give me the time turner, will you? Got a feathered friend to save!"

Hermione numbly acquiesced. What was turning out to be yet another adventure had become so much more. Harry shifted to the time that Walden McNair was trudging up to Buckbeak.

As Walden McNair was about to swish the axe, a spell made the ground beneath him slippery. The axe slipped from his hand, and was invisibly levitated, before falling blade-first onto his head, cleaving it into two. He was instantly killed. He wasn't a big loss really – well, to Voldemort he might have been. He was into Veela trade, and had taken great pleasure in executing the half-breed Hagrid under Umbridge's orders. Hmm. She would have to be taken care of.

Leaving a blustering Cornelius and a flummoxed Dumbledore (Harry was grateful that he couldn't be seen. Over time he had come to realise that Dumbledore really had to look at the big picture. He no longer revered the man as he once did, but respect Albus Dumbledore he did. Dumbledore had been a massive loss) behind, Harry went forward in time to when he had left.

"There," he said jovially. "One Walden McNair is dead by his...own hands. And One Hippogriff is saved."

Ron goggled at his friend in horror and inched away from him. "Harry!" he rasped. "You just killed another man!"

"So what? He was a Death Eater! The sheer litany of his war crimes is enormous!"

"But killing?" Ron remonstrated weakly.

"You know, I really wish we could've brought you back as well. In the last year alone, we killed some seventy odd people between us."

"I killed?" Ron asked, even more horror-struck.

"Yes. I need ten to match you, I think, though _that_ you'd probably say that going back in time to match you was unfair. Your final score was, I think, three hundred and seventy-ish. Somewhere in that range."

Not even Hermione could bring herself to scold Ron when he succinctly summarised his feelings as, "Fuck," eschewing his customary, "Bloody Hell!"

"It's like that for all of us. Hermione, Lavender Brown, Susan Bones all killed some fifty-sixty people, till we hid them because they were pregnant and they worked the intelligence, Luna Lovegood was better with healing and stuff though she killed some thirty people as well, and Ginny killed two hundred, then Neville killed fifty more than her. We were the core eight, the four Killer Couples. We'd broken off from the Order for a while because of differences with Dumbledore, but then there was only the Order and us eight left, and Voldemort kept winning. So we joined them back. Fred, George and Lee and you, Gin and I were the two best strike teams for our side. We killed and killed and killed." He snorted mirthlessly. "When reckoning comes, I am sure that I am going to hell."

"And we won't?" asked Hermione archly, unwilling to let Harry take all the blame.

"You aren't stained anymore, Minnie. I am. It's alright anyway. I'll go to hell if it means our families and the children can be kept safe."

"In that case it is them that will go to hell, Harry," Hermione said fiercely. He thanked her with a nod and a weak smile.

"I have a different problem," Sirius interjected. He was being strangely pragmatic. "Snivellus here botched the ritual. Do you know what exactly the other effects of that might be?"

This was bad. Not because of the idea of side-effects, merely. _Sirius_ , a Marauder, was thinking of the consequences of something that _Harry,_ with about as much experience with if not affinity for pranks, had done. It was just not done.

"I don't know, really," he answered in a small voice.

"And you couldn't think of asking that?"

"Bloody hell, man! I come back in time and you are giving me a bollocking about one tiny thing!" When Sirius merely raised an eyebrow...a very dirty eyebrow at that, Harry shut up.

"Well one of the side effects is that I reached about a year later. I was supposed to reach the 1st of September and catch Wormtail in time," Harry mused. "Snape had moved from his point, as had Ron who was going to drag Snivellus back to his spot." Frowning for a second, he concluded, "Snape didn't have the memories for sure."

"So, since Snape's dead, and Ron's alive, I think we should expect him to have some flashes," reasoned Hermione.

"Possibly..." accepted Sirius.

"That'd be good, you know. This Ron's okay," he said mock-dismissively, "That one was a pure killer."

"Hmm...It'll be useful won't it?" teased Hermione. "A better version of Ron..."

Ron protested with an "Oi!" and huffed.

They hadn't even realised that the dementors had left during the conversation. Harry couldn't have felt sorrow at that moment.

"There's another possible effect...one of the other sacrifices might have been given Snape's memories."

No dementor could've matched the impact of that statement. Harry paled horribly.

"Quick Ron, try and remember who those Death Eaters we used were!" Harry ordered, before slapping his forehead in exasperated and frustrated realisation. "Why was Severus Snape ever bloody born?" he yelled.

"You are seriously off your rocker, Harry!" Ron informed him with all the air of a pathologist telling the patient that he or she had a very terrible terminal illness.

"I think we should really talk about something else," Hermione declared amidst the disjointed conjecture and pronunciations which were becoming increasingly grim. "We have got a head start on things, so it's better to secure what we do know. And more importantly, we need to take Ron to the Hospital Wing."

Sirius looked suddenly sheepish. "Sorry about that, er Ron was it?"

Ron only gave an affected grimace.

"What about him though?" Sirius continued, jerking a thumb at Peter.

"Transfigure him into a ball, Padfoot. We can always bounce him along."

Sirius' grin at that was a mile wide. And so, limping boy, supporting friends (one of them bouncing a ball intermittently) and a big, black dog made their way to the school. Harry's cloak had been stowed away into Sirius' pocket.

* * *

Dumbledore was already there, sitting with a frown as he sat beside the practically dead potion master's bedside. When he saw the odd party trooping in, his face showed a tumult of expressions.

"Where, may I ask, have you all been?" he interrogated them.

"We were bringing Ron here, sir. He broke his leg. I trussed it up, but it's not very well done," younger-Harry explained, pointing at his friend.

Dumbledore had no doubt that it was an evasion. Harry usually had an end of the year adventure, and he had been waiting for it for quite some time.

"That doesn't answer my question, Mr. Potter."

"I know sir. I promise you that you will have more answers than you bargained for. I only ask you to wait I can tell you everything. It will be later tomorrow."

Dumbledore looked at his student wide-eyed. "More than I bargained?"

"Much more, sir, much more than you bargained. I will drop you some hints if you stop with your Legillimency attempts."

The old man didn't look abashed in the slightest. "I hope you will understand the necessity. I have a teacher who was kissed, one Ministry Worker who died on the castle grounds, and what I can sense as five magical humans though I can only see three and one animal which I presume is an animagus."

Inclining his head a touch, Harry decided to drop the old man a bone. "Bluntness suits you better than your secrets, sir."

Dumbledore's eyes grew wide in surprise. "What do you mean by that, my boy?"

"Another prophecy was made by Sybil Trelawney today, this one with me as the recipient, as you were for the first, as you told me." Dumbledore now held more than just surprise. How did the boy know? When did he tell Harry? "That was the first hint."

A thought wormed its way into Dumbledore's mind.

"The second is that you found out the way to cure my scar, and we now know the other _seven_ things like the Diary, and the scar. It is a runic exorcism. We don't know the hiding places, though."

The worming thought became a full-fledged drill. Time. That was the answer: time. Fearing what he would hear next, he asked the man – for he now had no doubt that it wasn't a boy he was talking to, but a man – he asked, "The third?"

"I killed the Death Eaters Walden McNair and Severus Snape. Snape was a traitor. You now owe me a moral, if not a real, life debt."

"You killed?" Dumbledore rasped, even as he tried to get around the fact that Severus had murdered him in the future.

"Yes. You eventually agreed with that course of action, out of sheer desperation."

Deciding that Harry was giving Dumbledore a hint too many, Sirius transformed. "Do you really trust him, pup?"

"We have to Sirius. I lost the reverence I had for him, but not the respect and not _all_ my trust. I have to trust him. He still is the one person who is strategically important – alive for us, and dead for them. I intend for as many people as can truly help us to know. And he is the only one I can trust to cleanse my scar – don't ask what that means, I'll tell you everything soon. The other important reason is that we really don't have time."

Dumbledore noticed the easy conversation between supposed mass-murderer and traitor, and the one he had supposedly betrayed, as well as the transition from 'we' to 'I'. He also realised, that Harry certainly knew about his reluctance to exorcise the scar soul-shard till he had seen fit to purge it. That had taken away the 'reverence' as he claimed. But he had not told anyone but him – and even then, indirectly – that he knew why Dumbledore had not removed the scar, or that he could have done so, before then. It was information that would put Sirius and Remus against him, without a doubt. So Harry too was seeing the bigger picture, in a way. He would throw his lot in completely with the boy – man. He had no choice anyway.

"One last question, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore started, far more courteously than he had ever spoken to any student. "Was it that horrible?"

"All in due time, Professor; I had hoped, though, that your inference would be explanation enough. Now that you know where I come from, perhaps you'd consent to a small drama tomorrow? My father's, godfather's and uncle Remus' legacy demands to be upheld."

A not too subtle way to tell him who the traitor was, Dumbledore mused. Eyes twinkling, he agreed. "Indeed, Harry. Such stellar legacies must be upheld."

"Thank you, sir. Just pretend to be afraid, will you?"

Dumbledore wanted to smile, but it only came out as a worried grimace. "Indeed." Then looking at the bedraggled Sirius and the now grimacing, injured Ron, he called out, "Poppy!"

The matron came in. Looking at Sirius, she shrieked, "It's Sirius Black!"

"Yes, I know, Poppy. I need you to trust me on this. Don't bother with Snape. Make sure that Sirius is comfortable. He is innocent." Harry had taken the first few steps. Albus decided to meet him halfway. Doffing his hat, he hurried out of the Hospital Wing, with a muttered, "Till tomorrow."

That move stunned all those present.

"Did Dumbledore essentially ask Poppy to let Snape die?" Sirius asked in wonder.

"As it so happens, yes, he did," the matron answered. "Severus is a lost cause anyway," she muttered, as she set about healing Ron and Sirius.

* * *

Harry and Hermione moved away to accord them all privacy. Harry transfigured a bed at the end of the ward into a strong solid steel cage, with a few holes to allow air to pass through. Placing the ball inside, he transfigured it back to Pettigrew, and stunned him again for good measure.

Harry and Hermione then sat beside the cage, with him casually placing an arm around her and drawing her into a hug. Hermione revelled in the contact.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"Were we close in the future?"

"I cannot answer that question without infringing on your free will, Hermione." He could have, really, but the shock and joy at seeing her, and the hormones had short-circuited his brain.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Harry sighed. This had been one of his biggest fears when he had returned. "In the future, you had fallen in love, you had married, and you had three wonderful children before you were murdered. I have already changed the timeline heavily within the first few hours itself. It is entirely possible that you won't even like the person you married then."

"Oh." Hermione was clearly thinking about it. "If I ask a question, will you answer it truthfully?"

"I will try. If I cannot, I will tell you so."

"Was it you?"

"Was I what?"

"Were you the person I married and had children with?"

Harry was quiet for a long moment as he erected a silencing ward around them. "You were always too clever," he said finally.

Hermione took that to mean a yes. "So you were."

Deciding that he couldn't – and even if he could, wouldn't – lie to her, he nodded to confirm her conclusion. Hermione looked like she was torn between happiness and hurt. Harry couldn't understand that at all.

"Then don't you like me anymore?" she asked a bit timidly.

This couldn't go uncorrected. "I don't just like you, Minnie. I love you. I love you so much that it was like dying a hundred times each minute, living without you. I told you, didn't I, that, I had to burn yours and our children's bodies? It killed me as a human, making me a bloodthirsty beast. I couldn't help myself when I saw you again. You know I cried, don't you? Have I ever cried before?"

Hermione could feel her heart swelling as Harry told her about their love in the future. Unfortunately, Harry put a damper on her joy, inadvertently.

"But now, I am nearly fourteen, and I am thirty five as well. Sometimes I'll be a bit too old for you, and sometimes I'll be the Harry you know. Don't you deserve better than someone like me, who is of this time, yet doesn't truly belong here?"

Narrowing her eyes in what Harry knew as anger, she stood and straddled Harry's outstretched legs, pinning him with a steely glare. Unmindful of the rather compromising position, she grabbed Harry's face and kissed him hard and very deeply. It was in her grand plan anyway. It was foolish to wait for him and Hermione always liked to have a bit of control. Only once she had had her fill did she admonish him. "That is not your place to decide, Harry James Potter. You loved me. As the thirty five year old you did. Do you love me, as the nearly fourteen year old?"

"I think I do. You did cause biological boy-things to happen to me for the first time." Hermione started blushing at that. "But knowing the future we had now, I think I like you more than that too," Harry answered candidly. It was through practice that he had known that candour always cooled Hermione's temper. He hadn't had the need to grow up and marry her for that. He then added in a small voice, "But Big Me also feels that it is quite creepy that he just physically snogged a fourteen year old girl."

"Is your body thirty five?" Hermione demanded. "And is little you," she wrinkled her nose a bit at the terminology, "non-existent?"

Harry shook his head vigorously.

"Then let me decide whether or not I deserve better. As it stands, if you love me, I can think of nothing better, do you understand?"

"Yes Ma' there remains a question."

"Yes?"

"Do you like me,or is this because I am your friend, and you feel obligated due to me telling you about the future?"

Hermione stared at her crush (not-so-secret, if her dorm-mates were to be asked) with not a little anger. "Do I look like someone who would feel obligated to a anyone, Harry? If you think so then you don't know me at all. I was so disheartened when those Dursleys refused to sign the stupid Hogsmeade form!"

"Oh."

""Oh", he says," Hermione taunted with an unladylike snort. "I was hoping that you might like me too."

"Of course I do! Big-me Loves you. I think I'll settle for liking you for now."

"Good." Then in a second they were kissing again. Harry was wondering why and how Hermione was suddenly being so forward, but couldn't find it in himself to complain. Hormones were working faster than his mind. Hermione was revelling in the rather forbidden and mortifying, yet strangely delightful feeling of Harry wanting her in all ways, as the rather physical evidence that she happened to be sitting on confirmed. Harry was revelling in this renewed closeness with his wife, as the images of the thirty five year old woman that was his wife, and the nearly fifteen year old girl kissing him coalesced.

As the kiss started getting more passionate and hands started wandering, Harry broke off. Hermione pouted and assumed a very hurt expression.

"Hey! None of that now," protested Harry. "We have to be responsible. I can't push you into something I know you aren't ready for. And I think we should help Ron win his bet. He was the one that got us together on Halloween 1996."

"I am not waiting for that long," Hermione declared with a huff, even as her traitorous body fought with her responsible mind regarding the validity of Harry's compunctions.

"We can get him to change his bet, Regina cor meum..." Harry placated with another searing kiss.

Hermione melted back into the kiss with a happy sigh.

Pulling back slightly, they stared into each others' eyes.

"You weren't this forward last time. What's different, Minnie?"

Hermione concluded that Harry was trying to see how much he could get her to blush. "Did I tell you when I started to like you?"

"No, not really. We had just started dating around Halloween '96. That day our date was broken early because someone passed a cursed object to Katie Bell. We then spent the rest of our date trying to arrange her transport to Hogwarts and then St. Mungo's. After that it was war, a small break, war, more war, we got married just after a fight when you became Valkyrie-Hermione, and a small honeymoon on Sirius' island in the Carribeans, then more war, then children and war, death and war." His face took a very stricken look. "Then you left me! You and the children left me alone in the world!" he hoarsely whispered. "Promise me you will never leave me again! It will kill me!"

Hermione just drew him into another heated kiss. She could feel all the love, lust and most importantly desperation and even a hint of possessiveness that Harry was pouring into the kiss. A while later he calmed down under her ministrations.

"We really didn't have much time to just get to talk and be a young couple in love," he explained with a shrug. "I would have really loved to know even more about you, you know. Those would have been more things to love about you."

"Did you practice your lines, Harry?"

"Only on you and for you, Hermione. Though I did briefly go astray and dated Cho Chang before we started dating," he informed her hesitantly. " Then shying away from her gaze, he continued, "I am sorry."

Hermione felt a sharp pang of hurt when he told her about the Asian girl. But she realised that he was trying to be honest with her. "Are you likely to date her now?" she asked archly.

"Of course not," came the instant and vehement reply.

"Then don't try to say things that you think might dissuade me."

Harry smiled sheepishly and ducked his head. "So when did you start liking me then?"

"Last year," Hermione declared. "I heard you when you used to come to talk to me. I thought it was very sweet of you. So I already had a crush on you. But I didn't think that you would like a mousy, bushy-haired, bookworm back. But earlier when you told me..."

"That you were my wife, and I loved you, you just decided to go with it," Harry completed. Hermione nodded. "That's good," Harry decided as he claimed her lips again.

"Harry," she asked sometime later, "Were we happy?"

"As much as we could be within a war," Harry replied without hesitation. "We had a family, and we were very much in love." He gathered her closer in an embrace. Suddenly he had a very devious idea.

"I love you, Hermione," he hissed into her ear in Parseltongue. "I love you so very much."

Hermione's breath hitched and she gave an involuntary moan. When she regained her senses, she moved away from Harry a bit. "Why, Mr. Potter, you seem to have some practice with that..."

Harry simply moved closer and whispered, "You have had alternate uses, or I should say, very risque fantasies for Parseltongue on your dirty mind ever since you found out about my ability last year. I was shocked at all that you could imagine, you naughty girl."

Hermione turned redder than her Gryffindor tie.

As he moved away, younger-Harry came to the fore, and started blushing too, as the memories of all that he and Hermione had indulged in, in private, became prominent in his mind's eye. He muttered, "I can't believe I said that. Hell, I can't believe I did that."


	3. Chapter 3

**Having Fun Playing a Dark Lord**

A/n: 1) Why is Dumbledore treating Harry differently? Owing to Harry's knowledge of the future and his information regarding the most sensitive topic, as well as the way Harry is forthcoming information with Dumbledore and is clear about his intentions, Dumbledore will treat him as a comrade-in-arms, or a trusted lieutenant.

2) While I was writing this Chapter, Sir Daniel Day-Lewis decided to become an eye-bug and superimposed his characters from 'There will be Blood' and 'Gangs of New York' on Harry at a very particular part, without caring for the context. It was much like a song that becomes an earworm and comes out into whatever a person is doing at the given time.

3) Why is Amelia Bones not doing what she is supposed to do? That's the question isn't it? She didn't do her job in canon either. In effect, she was a useless person in canon, who probably found some sort of benefit in letting sleeping dogs lie, till she became a big problem for Voldemort – just like any other politician. Don't believe that? Just ask the question: why did she never investigate the Cedric Diggory's death personally?

* * *

The next morning, Neville found himself being roused at five thirty in the morning. Normally he would have groaned and protested against being woken at that time, but having Harry hold a wand to his neck did wonders for his morning disposition.

"Harry?"

"Good morning, Neville!" Harry greeted him brightly. "I want you showered and dressed and present in the common room within the next, uh," he made a show of checking his watch and continued, "Thirty minutes, okay?"

The wand pointed at his neck did not move, and frankly, a too calm Harry Potter scared Neville.

A few minutes after the early morning wake-up call, Harry heard Neville's yell from the dormitory. Neville never did like it when he was turned a violent, shocking pink. But after nearly two years, this was the first time he was pranking his friend. Come to think of it, Harry decided that he wouldn't like it either. Deciding that the creation of newer pranks could be delegated to later, Harry turned his attention to the girls. Casually transfiguring objects around the room into a makeshift bridge (he still wondered how Wood used to wake the girls) to the top of the stairs, he clambered on and stood outside the door to the female dormitories and knocked.

It was Angelina Johnson. Harry was shocked into silence when he saw his team-mate. The last that he had seen of her was when she had been rescued from the 'Entertainment House'. He'd be damned if he let her face the same fate again.

Angelina was not amused when someone knocked on the door before six. Seeing Harry staring at her, she decided to be snarky and tease him at the same time. "Unable to sleep, eh, Harry?" she asked. "Want a cuddle with me?"

Harry stopped gawking like a fool and shook his head fervently. "No Angie. Just please send Hermione, Ginny and Lavender downstairs."

"Ooh, three girls? You're taking three girls to bed?" When Harry started colouring a bit, she added, "No space for me, Harry?"

"What? No! Not like that!" he started sputtering. Angelina started laughing, causing Harry to scowl. "Just send for them!"

The girls and a still pink Neville were in the room within the next twenty five minutes.

"What've you called us down here for?" asked Lavender with a jaw-cracking yawn. She absolutely did not appreciate being woken from her beauty sleep.

"Well, much apart from the fact that if I wanted to go all storybook hero on you lot, I'd have waxed eloquent about how much I love you lot, I've called you here to give you a heads up on what drama the day is going to bring."

Unfortunately, all four were still half-asleep.

"You didn't understand a word I spoke did you?"

"No," Hermione replied with a yawn herself.

"I am going to kill the Minister of Magic today in cold blood. I just thought you should know."

"'mkay..." groaned Ginny.

Neville had tried to vigorously scrub off the pink, so he was awake enough for that. "WHAT?"

"Don't shout Ne-eee-ville!" scolded Hermione half-heartedly around another yawn.

Harry had enough. "Spargo Frigida!" When he had decided that the girls were drenched enough he let up. "Are you awake enough now?" he asked testily.

"Ye-e-e-e-s-s-s, y-y-o-u st-stu-stupid, g-g-git," they stammered in unison.

"Good!" was the response, given too brightly to be allowed.

"Now, we are going to the Headmaster's office. You three, Neville, Hermione and Lavender, will go wake him up after you go and fetch Susan Bones. Ginny and I will fetch Luna Lovegood." The redheaded girl timidly followed as Harry left abruptly.

"Has he lost his mind?" Neville asked Hermione cautiously.

"He was alright till yesterday," Lavender concurred.

Hermione sighed and mentally cursed her newly minted boyfriend. Relating the events of the day before, carefully excluding the time travel thing, but including the deaths of the two Death Eaters, Hermione brought them up to speed.

"Sirius Black is innocent?"

"Yes."

"You lot caught Peter Pettigrew?"

"Yes."

"Snape got kissed?"

"Considering that a Dementor is the only creature that wouldn't have any qualms about kissing Snape, yes."

"Walden McNair worked in my Dad's office!" protested Lavender.

"That didn't stop him from being a Death Eater. His own axe fell on his head, killing him instantly."

"Is this how you normally end the year?" Neville asked at long last.

"Generally it is tamer, far tamer," Hermione answered with a sigh. "This time it seems that the year's end will be extended to today."

"And that's what killing the Minister was about?"

"It is likely. It is probable that it may not be in the figurative sense," Hermione cautioned.

"You mean he –?"

"It is probable. Honestly, I don't know."

"But why Neville and I?" asked Lavender, bewildered. "It's not as if we're that close, really."

"Lavender, I really don't know what happens in Harry's brain. Right now, whatever he has planned and asked us to do, seems to be something we can do." She strode to the common room portrait hole and pushed it open, striding towards the Hufflepuff common room.

"Have you got a strange feeling that we are soon going to be in over our heads?" Neville asked Lavender.

"Speak for yourself, Neville. Everything has already gone way over mine."

They exchanged commiserating looks, privately hiding a shudder at having that moment of camaraderie with the other. It was a very odd start to the day, when shy Neville Longbottom and gossip-queen Lavender found something in common.

* * *

Ginny had to scurry like along to match speed with Harry, who was striding towards the Ravenclaw tower, casually stunning both Filch and his cat when they jumped out from the shadows. When Ron hadn't returned to the tower the night before and Hermione had brusquely stated that he had broken his leg, Ginny had rightly recognised that it was all about yet another end of the year adventure. It didn't explain Hermione's smitten look and dreamy sighs, but otherwise it was all according to the general plan. The sun rose in the east, water was wet, and Harry Potter and his friends routinely got embroiled in a year-ending adventure.

"Harry?"

"Yes Gin?"

"What's going on?"

"A lot, really," Harry answered. "Can you speak Parseltongue on command?"

"Yes...WHAT? I am not a Parselmouth Harry! It was Tom last year, I swear! You can't seriously –"

"I know it was Tom last year, just as I know that as a side-effect, you were left with Parseltongue. Don't lie to me."

"Harry!" Ginny gasped.

"Ginny..."

"Harry you can't tell anyone about this, promise me," she hissed – in Parsel of course.

"I need you to use Parsel later today, Gin. It's all very important," Harry hissed back. Ginny didn't even realise it.

They reached the Ravenclaw tower. "What is common for the friend and foe?"

"The letters 'f' and 'e'," Harry answered dismissively. Luna had drilled him insistently to help get around traps with sphinxes.

"Enter."

"Go bring Luna down," Harry commanded Ginny.

Not understanding what was going on, but deciding to just 'go with it' in unfamiliar territory, Ginny quickly complied.

Luna, it turned out, was dressed in nothing. Her clothes had been stolen by her bullies. Ginny was blushing as she saw something that gave rise to feelings she had tried to ruthlessly quash. Harry shucked off his cloak and handed it to Ginny to help her cover up the blonde waif.

Luna came downstairs dressed in Harry's cloak. Harry couldn't help it. This girl was among the best friends he ever had. With Lavender and Neville, even though his instinct was to hug them as well, it would've been awkward. Awkward was a word Luna was not acquainted with.

Luna took one look at Harry and smiled brightly. "You did it, didn't you?"

"Yes. And I know your secret, and I promise you that whenever you feel it prudent to reveal it, I shall stand by both of you, no matter what." Harry wasn't surprised. Luna was someone who could surprise the omniscient.

"It's Crouch, you know. He got the present."

Harry paled. "Shit."

"It doesn't happen on command, Harry," Luna chided. "Mind your language."

"You have such a dirty mind, don't you? And by the way, hypocrisy really doesn't suit you, Lu."

Luna blushed. She swore like a fish-wife when the situation arose. Ginny looked between them in absolute confusion. When did these two get to know each other?

"But he wasn't even alive at the time! And how could he get Snape's memories?"

"He is the nexus point Harry. You cannot stop him. He is balance."

"What are you two talking about?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Come on, now. I told you I'd tell you soon. All in good time," he answered with a patronising pat on the head, even though he was feeling horrible at the prospect of Crouch gaining future knowledge. "Ginny, please lend her a few clothes, would you? I can't conjure yet."

"Yes, Harry."

"Now listen, you two. I know why you have started drifting away. Ginny, what you feel is nothing wrong. Luna is a wonderful person. And Luna, you have friends to rely on. I won't push either of you till you're comfortable with acknowledging it, but remember this. I will stand with you." When Ginny looked at him in fear, he emphasised, "Always."

"Wh-what are you talking about?"

"Denial is not only a river, Ginny. Just remember that I shall always support you. Now, off to meet the Wizard we go!"

* * *

The three found the other four attempting to reason with the gargoyle.

Harry frowned. When did these innocent idiots become the bloody monsters he had had the honour to fight with, really? He retrieved a dungbomb from his pocket and placed it in the gargoyle's mouth.

"Open up or I set it off. You choose." The gargoyle opened up. "As a reminder to not impede us again," he warned as he did set off the dungbomb. The spluttering and spitting of a stone gargoyle sounded like a stone scraper quarrying away in the mountains.

Albus Dumbledore was in his quarters, dressed in mundane exercise clothes. It was another thing that the magicals had stupidly eschewed in their attempt to break away fully from the muggle world. As his years advanced, he found that light exercises and stretches from the Orient did wonders for both his disposition and magic. It kept him very much in tune with his mind and powers. It had helped him before in duels by keeping him spry as he found it easy to dodge and move out of curses in time.

It also aided motion.

Suddenly there was a muffled voice from the obscured portrait that informed him about the incoming visitors. "Students at your door, headmaster," it said, giving him a list of the seven students. Albus frowned. What on Merlin's earth were they doing at this hour? Casting a quick cleaning charm on himself, and transfiguring his clothes into purple robes, he strode into his office and let them in.

"Good morning Headmaster!" Harry called cheerily. Far too cheerily for someone awake at that time, Albus thought. But then again, perhaps he had had to be up the whole night several times in the future and this was nothing to him. The other students seemed more interested in using each others' shoulders for pillows.

"To what do I owe this wake up call, Harry?"

"Oh, please, I know you were in the middle of your Yoga routine. When was the last time that you have slept past four thirty? The grip of insomnia tightens as one ages...it is terrible no?"

Albus winced. This model of Harry Potter was a bit too abrasive. "Yes, yes...well, do come in."

"Thank you, sir. I had to call on a bit early because a Ministry contingent will be coming to Hogwarts to exonerate Sirius and watch me execute Pettigrew."

Albus' face grew cold. "When did you decide that?"

"Well, I just forced a meeting between Her Grace, Lady Bones, and my godfather last night. That was the drama I told you about, last night. It happens to show you in very good light."

"And you took the decision unilaterally, without confirming with me?"

"It was needed. Trust me on this. By tonight at least half the Death Eater force will be destroyed. It was actually a plan we had hatched just before Snape murdered you. I just thought it would be nice to bring it to fruition in peacetime."

The two wizards stared at each other, attempting to size each other up, when an almighty snore from Neville broke the moment.

"And will it help?"

"It will. Oh, and shut down all communication from and into Hogwarts for the day." Albus accepted that. As far as he could see this was something that he had helped plan. "How much can you manipulate Fudge here onwards? It will be critical."

"If the clique he surrounds himself with is done away with, Cornelius is a good enough person to not need manipulation to be on the right side of things..."

"However he needs to be manipulated into doing anything at all, which is what I need you to do."

So they certainly had an experience with Cornelius' incompetence in the future. It was absolutely unsurprising. "If his popularity and ratings are at stake, much can be done."

"Thank you. I will leave that to you, but since we need to think of Voldemort's jewellery, you could always delegate that to Sirius. He could be the Order's political arm."

Which, given the importance of what was going on, was absolutely true, mused Albus. "Of course," he acknowledged with a nod. "Is that all?"

"Actually, no, sir. I have to let you in on something extremely horrible. Do you trust me to cast a spell on any of my friends, and to not hurt them?"

Albus glanced at the boy's companions. "Miss Granger?"

Hermione Granger was more than just a friend for Harry, Albus knew. So whatever he wanted to demonstrate could be demonstrated on her. Harry shrugged. He'd expected that. Albus fired a noise-maker that jolted four of the other five out of their respective slumbers. Luna was awake and excited. He then asked Hermione to stand by another wall.

"Hermione," he said to the now attentive girl. "Do you trust me? Do you trust me to not hurt you in any way?"

"Yes."

"Even if it seems as if I am killing you?"

"Yes."

"Promise me that come what may, you will not be afraid of what I do to you in this office?"

"Yes."

"Good."

He levelled his wand at Hermione and cast a stunner at her – in Parseltongue. As the green light arced at her, several things happened. Hermione's eyes widened, and she slumped to the ground. The others in the room, except Ginny looked at him in fear and started shouting at him. He let them have their fill.

"What have you done?" Albus asked in absolute fear.

"Just a minute, sir," he responded, before casting "Ennervate!" again in Parseltongue. The others, again, except Ginny, saw him casting another Killing Curse at Hermione's apparent dead body.

As Hermione opened her eyes and looked at Harry, she was afraid. She was sure that Harry had cast the Killing Curse at her. She however, didn't feel dead. The rest of them had a fleeting feeling that Harry had found out the way to bring people back from the dead.

"What spell did I cast, Ginny?" Harry asked the girl.

"A stunner, and then you revived her." Ginny immediately clamped her mouth as she realised what she had just revealed.

Neville had moved to another thing. "But the spell was green! I thought it was the Avada Kedavra!"

Harry nodded and looked at Albus, who understood with rising horror just what he had seen there.

"Voldemort apparently killed many on our side. He didn't kill as many as he stunned and didn't revive. He tried that once and unfortunately for him, I understood. Parsel-magic spells are always green in colour. It is very likely that we have buried people alive, having thought them to be dead. As it happens, in our world, people never touch a dead body, unless the person touching it is a healer. The bodies are always levitated into coffins. A burst of green light and nobody bothers to check the pulse. He must have killed many, but several people have died because they were assumed dead, as well."

"You mean he made us kill our own people?"

"Yes. Ron stepped in front of Lavender. We thought he was dead, she was hysteric. Ginny cast the reviving spell and that was it."

Dumbledore stood up and started to breathe heavily. This was a very effective demonstration. Their hands were painted with the blood of their own, and they hadn't even known about it.

"Are you alright sir?"

"James and Lily?"

"He killed them. Dad landed a cutting curse to his privates. They were vestigial organs for him anyway."

Dumbledore couldn't help but snort at the bald way Harry put it. "I am not alright. But I understand now. I understand much better. I take it you're going to use it?"

"Yes."

"On me?"

"If things come to that, yes, I will. Please use Legillimency on me every time I look at you. When I am about to do it, I'll face you, so you will know. I am doing it for a specific reason. The Aurors must know."

"Indeed."

"Anything else?"

Harry thought for a moment and then added, "Could you please arrange for the elves to keep several sacks of sand and just as many sacks of stones, as well as lots of rope outside the infirmary?"

"What for?" asked Dumbledore curiously.

"The plan to force the Ministry's hand was there. You, however, left it to me to decide how I should execute it. And I have an idea that uses the 'marked as Dark Lord's equal' part for something," Harry answered with a truly devious grin.

Dumbledore looked at the boy in front of him and sighed. It took so many years for the prankster within James' son to rise forth.

"I hope it remains within control. Is there anything else that you might want me to know?"

"I request permission to tell my team everything. And I want to train them. Please allow me to introduce, Hermione Granger, Susan Bones, Ginny Weasley, Lavender Brown, Neville Longbottom and a missing member, Ronald Weasley."

"When did we become your team, Potter?" Susan snapped.

"All in good time Bones-y. Merlin, the sheer number of times I am going to have to say that today will make me allergic to that sentence."

"And why would I want to do that?" Lavender asked.

"Repeat allergen sentence," Harry quipped. "Seriously though, I shall tell you all everything. I am not insane, nor is the Headmaster, who now knows enough to understand what's going on. You will get your answers. Susan, I wanted you here because it is likely that I will have to use Parsel-magic on your aunt to save her life in the future. I want you to understand that what I shall do to her will not kill her."

"How dare you?"

"I dare because even she doesn't know that your father wasn't dead till he was buried. What I demonstrated was exactly what happened to him!"

Susan slumped against the wall in shock as she heard that. Harry turned to Albus.

"You can do it?" asked the Headmaster.

"Yes."

"Do it. I have a condition. I want the memories as well."

"That's no condition. I was going to give you all of them anyway."

"What other horror have you not spoken of?" Albus asked as he nodded gratefully at Harry brushing off the condition.

"He went muggle as well. Voldemort got his hands on nuclear weapons."

"Good Lord!" swore Hermione and Dumbledore simultaneously.

There was a long silence, before Amelia called the floo. "Albus, my Aurors and I are coming through."

Dumbledore glanced at Harry, who nodded. "You will explain to her?" the younger man asked.

"Yes."

"Then we shall meet at breakfast time."

With that, the students left.

* * *

Harry skipped breakfast, leaving Hermione to once again deal with the questions regarding the discussions between Harry and the Headmaster. Truthfully they had done nothing. All they had picked up was a bunch of things that they didn't understand. She'd have had a torrid time explaining things, but fortunately, Luna intervened.

"He has come back for many things, but mostly for us. In time we shall know, but we will have to decide whether knowing is really the best thing for us. Our presence was a certificate of bona fide intentions issued to us." Her eerie voice had ensured that no more questions were asked.

Harry, Sirius and a newly cured Ron came in, with the dog carrying a cage containing a still stunned (and newly forced into the animal form) rat. Harry had filled them both in on what he had showed Dumbledore. Ron had looked at him with horror, while Sirius, who'd presumably seen something like that happen, but hadn't understood it at the time, had vomited and then cried. As soon as they came in, a signal was sent to the Headmaster, who nodded.

"Students," declared Dumbledore. "We have dignitaries from the Ministry visiting us today. I bid them welcome."

The Minister had brought his pet toad along, as well. Well that was called luck. Madam Toad had been the judge and jury with McNair as the executioner for several innocent people who wouldn't fit the Voldemort mandated human profile.

Younger-Harry had nothing personal against Cornelius Fudge at that point of time. Well, apart from the fact that he put Hagrid in jail at Malfoy Sr.'s behest. But Older-Harry had so many bones to pick with the man that it just wasn't funny. Hagrid's incarceration, blatantly calling him confounded (read: liar) when he stressed on Sirius' innocence in the third year, ignoring his warning regarding the resurrection of Voldemort, calling him a liar again for a whole year, and then having the audacity to ask him to toe the Ministry line and appear to trust the Ministry, did not endear the man to Harry in the slightest. Interestingly, he had been disposed of by McNair, when it had been found that Fudge had a muggle in his ancestry. So much for the bribes he took.

"Ready for the show, are you, Sirius, Ron?"

"Like hell I am. That is the sort of prank that we could have never pulled," Sirius answered.

And so it started. Stunning spells found their targets, as Umbridge, the Minister, Dumbledore and Madam Bones collapsed like a castle of cards. Dumbledore had certainly convinced Amelia Bones, for she strayed _into_ the path of the stunner which would have otherwise missed her. Harry called Dobby and ran to the Head Table, stunning Fred, George and Percy as he did so. They along with the absent Remus Lupin would have been the biggest problems. The elf did a wonderful job as before anyone could get their bearings, with a snap of his little fingers, Dobby had strung all four to the ceiling with the ropes. Each person had a noose around their neck with their hands tied far apart. They were also stood on the sacks Harry had earlier asked Dumbledore to arrange. That was where the similarities for the hostages ended. The sacks under both Dumbledore and Lady Bones were full of stones and sand. So even if he had to make a show of splitting a sack open, those two wouldn't be harmed, beyond the rope abrasions. Fudge was standing on a mixed pile, while Umbridge drew the short straw and was rewarded with an all-sand pile.

Ron remained seated and stared with horror at his friend, as did Sirius and the others among the 'team'. Whatever Harry had told them, it did not include that.

Perching himself on top of the Head Table, he revived the four. "Sonorus!" he cast, pointing at his own throat.

"Good Morning, my fellow students. You are today, lucky to witness the situation of the century. And We should really give you all Our thanks. Last year, all of you tried your level-best to convince Us that We were a Dark Lord in training. And well, We must say, you have all succeeded."

There were shocked gasps and strangled shouts across the Great Hall.

"Oh, come on, now! The old protests and pleas drama matters not a jot, really. We have got a fair few things to go through." He felt a sensation ride up his spine. Mad-Eye was on the move. The Parsel-stunner left his wand even before he had turned to look at the old Auror, and found its target. "All Aurors, please, come to the fore. You wouldn't want to share Mad-Eye's fate would you?"

The people around the Hall burst into another bout of shouts and gasps. Some even started crying and weeping. How had Harry Potter gone Dark?

The Auror left the body of their senior seated in a chair after levitating him. The fools, mused Harry.

"Now, We have shown that We have little to no compunction in killing for the sustainment of Our Reign. Well, Minister, did you know who killed Walden McNair and Severus Snape?"

The Minister looked at the Boy-Who-Lived in horror.

"Yes, that's right. We did. It was funny to watch the blade turn on McNair. And well, Snape was so accidentally kissed..." he sighed. "Our enemies do tend to die violently."

Many people hadn't even known about the deaths of the two men. And now here was Harry Potter, admitting to killing them.

"So now, here is what you shall do, Aurors. As you might have recognised, this is a hostage situation. All the students and these four dignitaries are going to help Us get what We want. Are We clear?"

Who had thought that Harry Potter could be that straight-out debauched? How were they to work their way around when the first strike was on the future of magical Britain?

"So, here's how it will work. First of all, We shall read a list. All the sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, or any other relations of the following people will be taken into custody. Also, they shall be divested of any personal effects barring their clothes. They should be thoroughly checked. We shall know. We want them sequestered in full view of this Hall. And before anyone tries to escape and warn anyone else, let Us make it clear, that We have closed off all ways of communication outside of Our castle."

Ron was shocked. His best mate had become the Dark Lord? He wouldn't let it happen. "You are not Harry! Who are you, really?" He never got to ask the next question as he found the green arc of magic rushing his way.

"Is there anyone else that dares question Us?" he asked. "No? Good."

That was the cue for people to start a pandemonium. Harry Potter had just murdered his best friend.

Malfoy decided to show just how foolish he really was. "Finally Potter, you have seen the right w –" was all he managed to say as he fell next.

"Are there going to be any more interruptions?"

That brought the whole Hall to heel. To ensure, though, that no other person interrupted, Minerva McGonagall was made to silence everyone and stick them to their seats, at wand-point.

"Aurors, you will first bring Weasley and Mad-Eye to Us. We want a cover here so that nobody can see the magics We wield!"

Hesitating at having to touch a dead body, but fearing that they would die next, the Aurors brought the surprisingly warm bodies to Harry. Harry stunned the Minister and Umbridge again – normally.

When they were all sufficiently close, he lowered his voice and spoke to the Aurors respectfully. "Look, I am just helping you get rid of the Death Eaters. Don't attempt to contact any of them. If you do so, I shall really kill you." He then revived Mad-Eye and Ron, much to the shock of the others. "You both did well, he told them. If what I am doing is successful, by tonight Britain will have no Death Eaters left. Voldemort is not dead. This is the first step to defeating him."

"How?" croaked Mad-Eye, just as Ron asked, "You are pulling this as a prank?"

"Madam Bones knows. She is the one who should explain. The Malfoy boy is in a similar state. Don't touch him. And yes Ron. This is a prank. One that gets Lucius Malfoy for what he did last year. Now I need you two to act as if you are under my control. Mad-Eye, I know you don't like it, but please. Trust me on this."

The cover broke and Mad-Eye and Ron walked back to stand by Harry's side. "Rise, loyal ones! We shall reward you when the time arrives for your loyalty!"

Both drew their wands and stood by Harry's side. The other Aurors, now understanding their part, detained the children related to the people on the list. All of those people were Death Eaters.

"Now, you shall call the editor of the Daily Prophet, as well as all his reporters. We have news for them," Harry ordered. "You shall procure Veritaserum as well."

While the people were being called and the potion was being procured, Harry disappeared to the side, and transfigured Peter back. Touching his Dark mark, and focussing his magic on the scar, he called out to Lucius Malfoy. He called out with all the intensity he could muster. He focussed on getting Lucius to Hogwarts in the Death Eater garb, and getting him to enter the Great Hall. The idea was to use the sliver of Voldemort and imitate the way the monster called out to his minions as he had done at the time of the third task. It had been the one time, when Harry, not knowing the general tradition of not touching a dead body had touched Cedric's body. The magicals had a stupid misconception that anyone touching the body tried to steal its magic as it left the body. Such a person was looked down upon. He hadn't known it then, but it was why people had thought that he might have been the murderer.

Lucius came into the Hall in the Death Eater garb, as ordered by his Lord. The pain had been excruciating. Looking at the tied up cretins, including Dumbledore and Bones, Lucius felt both elation and fear.

"Come Lucius," called the Dark Lord.

"Potter!" was all he screamed before he was normally stunned.

Harry the Hysteric, as the papers would name him, looked at the now terrified but puzzled reporters. "Are you all ready to tell the truth to the magical world? Are you ready to tell the magical world how blood traitors like Lucius Malfoy have killed other purebloods as they bowed down to another, casting their pride to the four winds?"

This appropriation of the term blood traitor made everyone look at Harry anew. They could only nod.

"Proceed. Aurors," he called, "let the world know the deeds of Lucius Malfoy and his companions."

And so it started. Lucius was made to list all the Death Eaters he knew. Harry was only interested in the inner circle. Those were the people Voldemort had likely entrusted his Horcruxes to. He was then made to confess to the Hall how he wished to kill all muggleborn and destroy the Weasleys in one go. He was also made to list all the crimes he had committed, when and how. It was having the desired effect. The reporters and Barnabas Cuffe, the editor, were trying to understand how such upstanding citizens had erred.

"You all have the confession of the traitor to this Magical Society," Harry finally said. "It has been heard by several witnesses. You shall report it fully for otherwise, you shall be deemed traitors!" he threatened.

Harry had nearly forgotten about the four hostages. He revived them just after Lucius' confession wound up.

"Potter! What are you doing, you filthy half-blood? I am the Senior Undersecretary to the – URK!"

The sudden interruption was because her noose tightened. Harry had slashed at a sack and the sand had started to run out. The aperture wasn't too large, but Umbridge had moved, fearing the spell coming at her, spilling more sand than the action otherwise would have.

"We are half-blood, but you have no right to either question Our ancestry, or to condemn it, scum. It is a matter of pride for Us. You shall of course pay for it with your life."

The woman was promptly silenced – not killed, silenced.

Turning to the prior congregation, Harry spoke, "We shall now interrogate the following," and read out a long list. They shall be all asked a question that they will answer only to Us." All the while he was looking at Dumbledore.

"You cannot do this, Harry my boy. This is a dark path that you are treading."

"We are not pleased with you, Mr. Dumbledore. For your insubordination, Madam Bones shall pay!" And the green light struck and stunned Amelia Bones. Susan, even though she now understood what was going on, like most of the other members of the core seven, still struggled. Harry enlarged one sack on the sly, ensuring that she wouldn't accidentally be hung to death. He also cast a feather-light charm on both the Headmaster and Lady Bones; no need for them to have aching arms when they would have to sign a load of things.

Theodore Nott too had understood what was going on. He broke through the silencing charm with quite some effort. "You cannot do this Potter! You will be put into Azkaban for the rest of your life!"

Harry had a predatory grin as he approached the boy. He grabbed Nott by the chin and stared straight into his eyes, furiously. "For years, your father has murdered innocent people, rich and poor, mundane or magical, and has built his Empire, Theodore Nott. For years, boy, your filthy scum of a father has ensured the continued existence of my enemy. And today he shall die! HE SHALL DIE!" He then started laughing manically, much like Bellatrix Lestrange always did and Sirius Black had once done. "And do you know? You have had your share of the spoils, haven't you? Daddy gave you what you wanted?" He put on a very high-pitched baby voice and bawled, "Daddy! Mudbloods are taking away things I want but can't get because I am not meritorious enough! Get it from them for me!"

Nott would not answer.

"ANSWER ME! ANSWER ME, YOU LITTLE SWINE!"

Theodore nodded.

"And did your Daddy think that there would be no response?"

Theo was terrified. But he wasn't terrified by the threat. He was terrified by the madness of the Gryffindor Golden Boy. Said Golden Boy did a odd hop/walk-on-the-coals as he went to Lucius Malfoy and caused a jail of hard rock grow around him as an extension to the Hall's floor. The jail was so tight that any attempt at removing Malfoy from the serrated spikes would cause him to bleed to death.

"Tell me Theo, what did your Daddy think he was going to get when he killed people? Did he think about his sins when he murdered? Did he?"

"Stop th-this nonsense Potter!"

"A nonsensical rambling is it? We shall see."

Harry strode up to Lucius Malfoy and this time focussed on Theodore Nott Sr. who came in within the next fifteen minutes. Harry levitated him upon arrival and crashed him into the Headmaster's dais.

"Hello Nott!"

Nott still was nursing confusion and fear as Potter approached him. Harry was concentrating hard enough for Nott to think Voldemort had taken hold of Harry.

"I hadn't known my Lord!" he pled. "I swear, if I'd known –"

"If you'd known what Nott? If you had known that you are a murdering son of a three-penny Knockturn Alley couple? If you had known that it was a sin to murder innocent people? If you'd known what?"

"My Lord, please..."

Harry levitated him and threw him across the room again.

"My Lord, all I have is yours to use, please..."

Harry grinned hatefully at this man who had brought in countless laws that made the hunting – yes, the actual hunting – of muggleborn legal. He would have got their progeny executed for their dirty blood. Turning to the hall in general he said, "Oh look, this is a grown man!" He then launched Nott across the room again, right at Theodore Nott Jr.'s feet.

"Look at your son, Theodore! Look!" Harry pulled Nott by the hair, not relenting with the magical call that caused Nott to suffer near unbearable pain in the mark, and shoved his face into his son's. "Look at him and tell him that your blood purity superstition is worth murdering for, is worth killing newborn babies, Nott!"

"My Lord, what has happened to you?"

"We are not your Lord, Nott! We are the son of the woman your Lord killed! Now you shall grovel at Our feet! You shall plead with Us to let your son live and to kill you instead!"

By this time, both the father and son were completely and truly afraid. "Please, let him go, Potter, not my son please!" He received a bone-breaking kick in the ribs for that.

"Aurors! Call in the Dementors please! They are to have breakfast! Two of three souls, we shall see which they are!"

"We cannot Potter!" Robards protested.

"Minister, say good bye to your life!"

In a sterling example of real politics, Fudge decided to sacrifice the Notts and the Malfoys. "Damn it Robards! Bring them in!"

"Clever, minister, you are..." He then set his stag prancing about.

"So Nott, We shall spare your son's life if you tell Us where you have hidden whatever it was that Voldemort gave you..."

"Nothing! He gave me nothing!" Nott was tossed back across the hall.

"Secure the boy, Weasley. Kill him!" Ron, who had by now understood the subterfuge after Mad-Eye had whispered things into his ears at a furious pace, grinned in a feral manner and jabbed his wand into the younger Nott's neck.

"No! I swear! He only gave me a quill! He only ever gave me a goddamned bejewelled quill!"

"Where is it?"

"I..."

"Weasley!"

"It's in my Manor! It is at the manor, and there is a flesh-rotting curse, a layered compulsion charm and above that a notice-me-not charm on the cupboard door unless it is the blood of me or my Heir! Only the drops of our blood will reveal it!"

"So his blood will do?"

"No! No! Only mine! Only my blood will do! Spare him! Please!"

"As you wish, Nott!"

Theo Nott Jr. had started crying as realised that he was about to witness his father's death. "Why?" he burbled. "What has my father ever done to you?"

"Didn't you understand? It was Mary."

"Mary?"

"Mary McDonald, one of those that your father murdered. She was supposed to live. Your dear father sucked the life out of her. He sucked away her will to live. Now the dementors will return the favour." He turned to the Death Eater. "Now they will return the favour. Understand?"

The Dementors came in at that moment. "Noble ones!" called Harry. "Your food!" He pointed at both Malfoy and Nott. They took it at will. A little of Nott Sr.'s blood was taken and Moody was dispatched to bring in the Quill.

Within the next ten minutes, the Quill, which was attempting to get Mad-Eye to write something using it, was stored in a stone box that Robards conjured and placed on the Head Table, while Nott was forced to spill the names of every inner circle Death Eater he knew, along with all the crimes he had committed. Veritaserum and fear together made a wonderfully potent combination. The Dementors then ensured that the Houses of Malfoy and Nott would have underage Heads of Houses. It caused people to start crying and sobbing, of course. Good, normal, everyday innocent people don't really want to see anyone dying, even if the people in question are terrorists who should be put down like rabid dogs.

Meanwhile, taking pity on her, somebody had given Umbridge her voice back. "Help! Help me!" she gasped.

Dismissing her Harry blew a raspberry at her. "Alright, woman! I'll cut you down!" He raised his wand and shot a cutting curse...at another sack. Umbridge got even more strangled as the sand flowed out. Harry turned to the Hall at large and mock-sheepishly grinned, spreading his hands in a what-do-I-do kind of gesture, and said, "Whoopsy Daisy! Can't seem to get it right today!"

Harry turned to look at the four hostages. Dumbledore gave a minute shake of his head and mouthed, "Don't kill her at Hogwarts. She will haunt the Castle." Harry gave a curt nod. The man had a point. Saving Umbridge now vs. her haunting the castle was a no-brainer. So Harry sent the sand back in and repaired the sack. Then he waggled a finger at her and warned, "Don't speak until you are asked questions, bitch. Silence might probably prolong your life."

Funnily, ghosts were after all only imprints of souls. It was not an established fact that Dolores Umbridge had a soul, but it would do well to eventually ensure that she had no soul to speak of. No soul, no Umbridge, no ghost. It was why Harry particularly liked that so called inhuman way of executing criminals. They simply didn't retain enough of a sense of self to think of coming back to haunt people. It was also why the Prongs the stag shepherded a dementor towards Dolores.

Of the common people on both lists, Myrridin Selwyn (a wholly undeserved name to a murderous ponce) was dead. Augustus had inherited the vaults, but had at the time been too young to take the mark (less than the sixteen at which Draco Malfoy had sworn the madman his life, wealth and fealty). So he couldn't be harmed. Walden McNair was, along with Dolohov, the top hitman for Voldemort. As they were sent into battle often, they had not been given the ceremonial gift during that time, Nott had explained. Then there were the Lestranges. Well, Sirius would get his revenge soon. They had something, of course. Harry realised in retrospect that Voldemort had to have gone after the full set of Blacks. They had collectively forgotten more Dark Magic than Voldemort had ever learnt. Snape had been entrusted with something to protect within the castle. Rookwood was a risk, considering the wealth of knowledge that he had. With the Diary, the Locket at Grimmauld Place, the Quill that Nott had, whatever the Lestranges had, and whatever had been stored in the castle, they already had five of the eight objects. Oh, and Wormtail still had the wand, even though the little shit had about as much chance of being in the inner circle as Hermione had of ever willingly bearing the Malfoy Heir. All in all, a very productive day, Harry mused. Staring straight at his Headmaster, Harry conveyed the information.

Albus Dumbledore was in part shocked, in part appalled, and in spite of himself, in part also very much amused. If this was the panacea to the Voldemort problem, he could have – should have – done this more effectively years ago. People already feared him then. He really shouldn't have waited for desperate measures. But he had to be different from Voldemort which was why he had chosen the non-confrontational path. As much as he abhorred violence, he hated the loss of innocent lives even more.

Years ago, when he had had a friend called Gellert Grindelwald who sought to rule the world based on a children's story, he had coined the term – the Greater Good. For the Greater Good, unsavoury things would have to be done. Bigwigs would have to be toppled; some people had to be trampled upon. He hated it. It placed the rights of one person below that of another. He had only meant the use of the Greater Good as a metaphor for amassing political and magical power and for helping people. And this use of fame, this sudden burst of madness, the situation that had been created were all exactly what he used to privately think of as doing something for the Greater Good.

His protégé had learnt that grim lesson. For the Greater Good, Harry was shedding his image as the Golden Boy, however briefly. For the Greater Good, he was giving people reason to fear him, just so that people would think twice before making the sort of mistakes that had led to the last war. It wasn't a situation he wanted for Harry. He wished the boy to be the standard that the people of Britain would accept as their leader. He wanted him anointed as his successor. But things rarely happened as one wanted. Harry experiencing a fall from his pedestal against the eventuality of Emperor Voldemort was no contest, really.

"Pettigrew, now," he mouthed. Harry grinned back.

"And now, folks, for the main entertainment of the day," Harry announced grandiosely. The dog came in with the cage. A quick Imperio on the rat ensured that if anyone asked Peter why he had pursued the animagus transformation, it would be because he wanted to help the Dark Lord's cause, and not because of Moony. "Auror Scrimgeour?" he called the man. "Please cast the Animagus revealing spell on this rat."

Scrimgeour had been a very pompous man in the other timeline, and had not held much trust for the Order or the Eight. All the same, he was a good man – who had arrested Nott before. That man had slipped then, and it had impugned his professional honour. To see the man have his soul sucked today had given him closure as an Auror. So casting the spell was a small favour on the person who had helped clean his record. His surprise though was uncontained, when he saw the person that the rat turned into.

"Isn't he supposed to be dead?" Scrimgeour asked.

In answer, Harry revived Amelia Bones. The Hall gasped as one.

"So was she. She isn't dead. Never was. Just as Ron wasn't and nor was Moody. But that's important information for later. This is Peter Pettigrew. This is the man who betrayed my parents to Volde-fucking-mort." The Hall gasped as one again. Harry tore open Peter's shirt, and showed everyone the Dark Mark. "This fucker is the reason why I have no parents, along with Voldemort, but that's for another time. This piece of vermin is why my **_INNOCENT GODFATHER SPENT TWELVE YEARS IN AZKABAN!"_** he ended with a roar. He then punched Peter squarely in the gut with the left fist, just as he revived him with his wand in his right hand.

Peter lurched involuntarily at the impact. He then saw James – as he had been so many years ago. He knew he was dead. Then he realised that he was worse off. James had Lily's eyes.

"Well, well, well; hello Peter. Haven't seen you as a human since you betrayed us to Voldemort, didn't you?"

Peter had gone as white as a ghost. He had been unveiled in front of the packed Great Hall. With the Aurors present. With the Minister present. With Amelia Bones present. He was dead.

"Harry..." he breathed, moving towards the version of his ex-friend.

"You lost the right, shiteball. I am not Harry. I am your death." Just as Peter inched closer, Harry struck him with the Sword's pommel, and divested him of Voldemort's wand which was promptly stored into another box.

"Trying to get close enough to kill me, are you Peter?"

Peter knew he was dead. He tried appealing to Harry's better nature. It was just his massive misfortune that Harry didn't have a better part left for him anymore.

"I am sorry," Peter started crying as he spoke. "I am sorry...Harry, please! He was just too strong! The Dark Lord..."

"He gave you a particularly easy thing to do in exchange for your life, didn't he?"

"Yes...yes, he did! I am sorry! I really never meant for James to die...I am sorry, he would have killed me!"

"You are a fool, Peter. Did you for even one moment think I wouldn't kill you?" Harry asked softly.

Peter blanched. "What are you saying? James wouldn't have wanted that for his son! No! Please..."

"What dad would have wanted for his son is something I'll never know, because of you, isn't it?"

Peter tried another tactic. "You have Lily's eyes, Harry, just like her..." He received a black, burst, useless eye for his trouble.

"Don't try it, Peter. Look, you are the wrong person. You weren't supposed to live. Dad should've. Mum should've. Sirius should've been free."

"No... He was just too strong..."

"I am doing what dad should've Peter. Dad should've killed you. But well would've, should've... it doesn't really work that way. I am going to kill you."

"No, you wouldn't... I held you once..."

"Stop snivelling, you rat. Stop your nonsense. Think about the rat-traps in hell, Peter."

"No!"

"Where were you when your fool of a mother tried nursing you, Peter? Why did you decide to go lick Voldemort's balls instead?" Harry caught the man by his sparse hair and wrenched his head back so forcefully that Peter howled in pain.

"Spare me, please!"

"You know, both my dad and mum fought Voldemort. Dad even took of Voldemort's 'meat and two veg' off before Voldemort killed him. You know? Your betrayal sucked the life out of them. Now think. You have had your SHARE of the butterbeer? So think. I have got this vial of veritaserum. Now I tip it into your butterbeer. You tell me all the things you have done."

Peter started crying. Harry did pour in the three drops and forced out more information.

"Please now! I told you everything! Please don't kill me!"

"No. What I can do is this. I have got a dementor around. I get it to kiss you." Harry mimed sucking the soul out of an imaginary person. "You know what a dementor does? It sucks you see? It...sucks...your...soul." He grabbed Peter by the throat and made a sucking sound. "It sucks out your soul!"

"DON'T DO THAT TO ME!" Peter hollered.

Harry roared like an insane hybrid between an elephant and a lion, before punching Peter's face inside out. "IS THERE ANYONE WHO STILL BELIEVES THAT SIRIUS BLACK IS ANYTHING BUT INNOCENT?"

A chorus of "No" answered him. Peter whimpered.

"You had a reckoning coming, Peter! And I am the reckoning! I am the judge, jury and executioner!" Turning to Amelia, Harry 'requested', "This time, send his head to his mother, alright?" Sirius transformed back just in time to see the hatred etched onto James features, reflected completely in Lily's eyes, as Harry cut off the tongue that told the Dark Lord the whereabouts of the Potters.

The Sword soon claimed another life. As promised, Peter's head, now separated from his body was intact, barring the tongue. The rest of him wasn't. The castle elves had extra work to do that day, given the blood, gore and sick they had to clean. Poppy Pomfrey had to order surgical obliviations for Hogwarts students that day. It was necessary to ensure that they wouldn't suffer from trauma. The reporters had been ordered to keep things regarding 'where' exactly the interrogations had taken place secret. It had only been laced with a mild threat. They really didn't need it.

* * *

"JUST WHAT THE FUCKING HELL HAPPENED TODAY?"

Amelia Bones wasn't in a happy place. Three big members of the top political echelons (two of whom had turned up in Death Eater robes) and a man thought to be dead for twelve long years had just been murdered – executed, if one wasn't looking from the point of view of the Head of the DMLE – in front of her. Her department had been turned into a laughing stock. The blood and gore had been such that the Minister had had to be given calming draughts and sent home. It was why she and her Aurors had stormed into Dumbledore's office to demand answers.

"You'll get that answer, but I'll want an Unbreakable Vow from you that you'll do your job. Hitherto, you have just been warming eggs in that ivory tower of yours."

"Potter!" snarled Amelia.

"Shut up, woman. You know as well as I do, that you have been useless. I don't care what problems you've had. You have let sleeping dogs lie. You are useless."

Everyone looked at Harry in shock.

"Don't believe me? You didn't review Crouch's decisions after he was removed in disgrace. You let Fudge and his toadies run roughshod over Auror investigations, when instead you have the authority to arrest them for interfering with the law. You haven't investigated your force and tested their loyalty. Go to Knockturn Alley. You'll find a long list of crimes that have germinated there and which you and your department have failed to stop. Azkaban inspections – are you not supposed to personally check each prisoner? How was an innocent allowed to rot there? No answer? You are useless."

Amelia sat down. She felt physically ill as she heard the allegations being levelled at her.

"But...Susan..."

"Of course, your weak point; they threatened you using Susan, didn't they?" Amelia nodded weakly. "No Dumbledore? You couldn't have told him? You couldn't have trusted him to keep her safe here or to put her under his personal protection or to make her a ward of Hogwarts?"

Amelia could only nod morosely.

"Shit!" Harry slapped the table with a hand. "And you have that bloody ego! Of course, you hadn't the balls to investigate and take an Auror at hand, perhaps people like Aurors Moody, Scrimgeour and Robards, and protect her? You couldn't fight back?"

"I am going to resign..." Amelia accepted sadly.

"And what good will that do, pray tell?" Dumbledore asked as he entered the conversation for the first time. He had placed a hand on Harry's shoulder to stop him from losing all control over his temper. He could very well understand the time traveller's frustration. Amelia was not the person he had expected to roll over for the Death Eaters.

"I have failed Dumbledore. It is my responsibility."

"And saving Britain from itself during the coming times isn't?" the man countered.

"You heard Potter. I have done nothing."

"I am disappointed, Amelia." Unlike Harry who was a certified hothead, Dumbledore didn't need too many words to make people feel an inch tall. "You were a true Hufflepuff in school."

"Albus..."

"No. I think I need to be your Professor once again. You were once a woman with such ideals, Miss Bones. You were one of the few people I was proud to teach. Lily, James, and then Harry are some of the rare people after then that I have been similarly proud of..." he sighed.

Harry couldn't take that praise easily. Dumbledore had never said that before in either timeline. "Sir, how can you be proud of me after what I have done?"

"Because you did what you had to Harry," Dumbledore answered. "You killed when there was no recourse. You did things that had to be done to protect people. You sacrificed your innocence for that. If I can't be proud of who you are as a person, then I can't be proud of anything at all." Turning to Amelia, Albus gravely declared, "You, Ms. Bones, have some way to go before you can regain my trust. And the only way to do that is to do what is necessary; the only way to do it is by doing the job you have been entrusted with properly. As far as the lawmaking matters go, I give you my word that you will have political support. But you have to redeem yourself."

"Yes Professor," Amelia answered.

"Good. Now I have terrible news to deliver to you all."

"Yes?" Even Moody was wary – which was positively sorrowful for the man.

"Harry, if you'd do that green spell thing?"

"Yes sir. Auror Moody, would you care to volunteer again?" Mad-Eye grunted.

Harry clearly enunciated the spell in Parseltongue, and stunned Mad-Eye, before reviving him the same way.

"You have found the way to counter the Killing Curse?" Robards asked with far too much hope for an Auror.

Harry gave him a look that clearly stated his opinion about the Auror's apparent idiocy.

"If that were so, would Professor Dumbledore have said that it was a bad news?" Robards flushed and looked away. "No. I only stunned Mad-Eye in Parseltongue." He explained the matter to the Aurors completely.

"So we buried people who were alive?" asked Mad-Eye, quite green around the gills.

Dumbledore nodded sombrely. "When Harry told me about it, my reaction was just as bad as yours, Alastor. The superstition regarding bodies actually cost us good people." Looking over at Amelia he added, "Your brother, Richard, included."

Amelia couldn't help it. She choked a sob.

"How did you find it?" asked Rufus.

Harry looked at Dumbledore for guidance regarding the unasked question: should Rufus Scrimgeour be told? Dumbledore shook his head and decided to ease the pressure. "I have been thinking about an experiment in spell-casting. What happens exactly when someone casts in say Mermish, or Parseltongue, for that matter? Luckily Harry was at hand. He cast several spells. All Parseltongue spells are green. A stunner would be so too. People assumed the stunned person to be dead, as Harry told you."

"Merlin!" exclaimed the four visitors in unison.

"Indeed."

They lapsed into a contemplative silence. Harry stared at Dumbledore, who picked up his student's thoughts. Amelia had to be told as Susan was one of the eight. And Alastor was a person that Albus trusted completely as well. That was their next challenge. Dumbledore had been easily convinced because of certain pieces of knowledge that Harry had shared. He knew that bringing the other two on board would need a concerted effort. And he would do that for the young man seated across him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Taking Stock and Decisions**

Knowing that it would take time for all the Death Eaters to be arrested, and in many cases, it would be a complete impossibility because they had been acquitted and retrospective arrests after overturning the previous judgements were impossible, no further shenanigans were affected by the time traveller.

However, Amelia Bones, now working to salvage her honour and reputation as a Bones, was working harder than ever. She had given her Aurors carte blanche to get into entrapment and destroy as many Death Eaters as they possibly could. Some Death Eaters were like Walden McNair – psychopaths and sociopaths. Fenrir Greyback, for whom a continental hunt had been arranged, was one of them. Some were supremacists who wouldn't let go a chance at some muggle-baiting and a little torture for daily appetisers. Some were plain greedy and had been lured by power and money. There was no hesitation on the DMLE's side as they went about bringing them down. It was the last kind though, that Amelia sympathised – nay, empathised with. These were the ones threatened into being Death Eaters, or those who had become Death Eaters as ransom in lieu of some family member. She dealt with them sternly but fairly. Anything else and it would have been the case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Malfoy and Nott were special cases because they had turned up in the Death Eater garb, and it had placed Fudge into a precarious position. If they weren't arrested, he would be lynched by the public. If he would, he would lose funding. As it stood, they were both dead.

The Malfoys were completely disavowed by Sirius, and called as Oath Breakers. Narcissa and Draco, both of whom had lost their swagger, money and the family name, had been assigned the name of Rosier – after Druella Rosier, Narcissa's mother's maiden name. Just to ensure that the Rosier money, comfortable for a family of two looking to disappear behind the scenes, was not turned over to Voldemort, its stewardship had been entrusted to the Chief Warlock. They had both been packed off to the US, where Draco was now enrolled at Salem. Narcissa had to give an Unbreakable Vow to ensure that she would renounce bigotry in all forms, and also do everything within her power to ensure that Draco would do so too. Draco had been put under surveillance. A step out of line and he would be inside Azkaban quicker than you could say "Oh!"

All told, eighty seven Death Eaters had been put behind bars or executed by a particularly angry DMLE. It was a massive blow for that lot, because Voldemort was fresh out of enforcers. Ergo, he had lesser resources.

The murder of Crouch Sr. in his home meant that the warning Harry had given Dumbledore was now flagged as high priority. Dumbledore had agreed that some things had to be done the same way, including Crouch Jr., even though the man had the gift of future knowledge. They had no way to know what Crouch Jr. would do with that information in the long run. He was being hunted, but that was it. The bits and pieces were the important things to consider at the moment.

A worse treatment was awaiting Lestrange. Currently, a fresh dose of the Draught of Living Death was being brewed. Neither of the Lestranges needed to be awake to access any of their properties and their Gringotts vault – they just needed to be alive. They had already been moved to a Ministry safe house to which Scrimgeour was the secret-keeper. It would be done soon, and Dumbledore expressly forbade Harry from venturing out of school on that 'mission' as the old man chose to call it.

The reason was simple – it would not do for him to be seen around Aurors, as it would give rise to speculation. Kingsley, Mad-Eye, and three more within the Ministry, as well as Sirius and Remus, had been earmarked to work in that capacity once things had been brought under control. There had been no argument. Dumbledore did not give reasons, but Harry no longer needed them all the time either. They would never be as close as Harry was with Dumbledore till before Sirius' death when he constantly sought the Headmaster's approval, but there wouldn't be the discord between them that arose later, either. They both recognised the need to work together, as well as the need to keep appearances. Harry recognised the situations where Dumbledore would take the lead, and Dumbledore stopped treating Harry like a kid. They were two men, working towards the common goal of bringing Voldemort down for once and for all.

They had agreed instead, that Harry and Sirius would spend the summer at Hogwarts with Dumbledore and the three would strip the castle down in its entirety to weed out the Horcrux. The wand, the quill and the locket, had all been destroyed, as had been the diary. In other words, Voldemort was at least forty percent dead. That was farther than they had ever reached before. With two more solid leads, things were looking better and better.

* * *

For the time being, therefore, Harry was spending time with his friends (who had of course forgotten the Feast of Souls), godfather Sirius ( _Sirius was recuperating within Hogwarts walls. The old mutt took full benefit of that, hanging around and flirting with the older female students (lightly, or as he said, "only for practice"; Hermione and Remus had hexed him badly) and Professor Babbling and Professor Vector (Siriusly...er...seriously). As it turned out, even Sirius had standards. Sybil Trelawney was strictly off limits_ ) and uncle Remus – and of course, his girlfriend. Harry had known that the woman he loved had a wild side. The kitty really had claws. What he didn't know was that in private, Hermione, the girl that was becoming a woman, was just as wild. Apparently, her taste for books strayed into blush-causing genres as well. Just for a lark, he had read a book she had been reading the night before on the couch in the common room. The man who had killed six people since his return to the timeline had resembled a tomato as he snapped it shut after two pages. It seemed Hermione had far too many fantasies that she had acted out on later. It gave Harry more reason to both love books and to be scared of them as well.

 _It had been_ _a bit_ _very reluctantly, that Harry had pushed Hermione away a bit._

 _"_ _Minnie, you know I love you don't you?"_

 _"_ _Of course, I do, Harry," Hermione replied with a grin. Hearing those words made her heart flutter each time._

 _"_ _You know that I find you attractive as well?"_

 _"_ _Yes," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "What is the point then?"_

 _"_ _Will you please stop with the slow writhing thing you do every bloody single time we kiss?"_

 _"_ _Why?" the girl asked with some hurt in her voice._

 _"_ _Hormones, my dear Hermione, Hormones with the capital 'H' – they will be the death of us."_

 _"_ _What do you –?"_

 _"_ _Don't play coy. You know that I know what you are thinking. The Elder-me has been in this situation with you and believe me, I truly can't believe you of all people would do that!"_

 _"_ _Do what?"_

 _Harry gave her the gimlet eye before whispering into her ear. Hermione blushed redder and redder, but it was obvious that whatever Harry had told her was an enjoyable thought, given the grin she was also sporting._

 _"_ _Damn it woman! I need my right head to think!"_

 _Hermione huffed. "You can't take even a bit of teasing, Potter."_

 _"_ _Say that when I tease you Granger."_

 _Hermione, in a sterling display of prudish behaviour, just smiled at Harry and replied, "I will look forward to it, Potter."_

 _Harry wondered what had made the woman so wanton._

* * *

That didn't mean all was calm. Harry had told them all about Luna's warning. This meant that they would all have to be ready to fight. Hermione had decided to start studying spells of the more esoteric kind – just as she had done 'before'. She was the first of the rest of the eight to start preparing. Harry hadn't thought that that course of action would make him love her even more, and also hurt painfully as he remembered the family they had. It also made the Neanderthal in him attempt to shed dormancy as he felt the urge to go about grunting, hollering and smashing Death Eaters' heads so she wouldn't have to fight.

 _Each of the fighters had individual styles. Ron was the more slam-bang kind of fighter. He tossed blasting spells with such ease that not even muggle bombs could match. He also was curse-heavy. Lavender made up for that with her trick spells. Her masterclass was the water net. An unsuspecting Death Eater would step into a puddle, only to drown in water several metres deep._

 _Ginny, influenced by Tom, fought in a way closest to Voldemort, casting Unforgivables and all sorts of hexes and jinxes. She was just as good as Harry was at DADA. Luna worked the magic of the air. She had mastered the reverse of the bubblehead charm – hers created a vacuum around the victim's head, and had created a tornado spell that lacked control but could take away swathes of the scum. She spent more efforts in healing though._

 _Susan was their resident torture, interrogation, and body disposal specialist all rolled into one. Each of them could do that, but she could do it with glee. Neville was the truly special one. He had realised that the DEs were expecting spells. So he had diversified to potion bombs and cursed bullets, offensive Herbology and physical takedowns. It was effective._

 _Hermione always researched and cycled between spells the opponent didn't know. She had landed one on the bitch, Lestrange, herself, killing her ever so slowly, to avenge Susan. Harry took after James, Lily and Sirius in a fight. Like Sirius, he tempered all his transfiguration and charm heavy fighting style he had inherited from his parents with creative uses. Sirius used them for pranks, Harry used them to kill. He had once transfigured a few DEs to sheep and a few others to wolves, and instigated a feeding frenzy. Human transfiguration using spells didn't allow the transfigured humans to keep their human senses._

As much as they all wanted the children – for in their early teens, that was what they were in respect to the war – both Dumbledore and Harry knew that sooner rather than later, they would all have to do things that would be necessary but nothing to be proud of. So it was agreed that it would be better for them to be trained monsters not needing the skills than be innocent fools.

* * *

The only matter of contention was regarding who should be told. While initially Harry thought that Amelia Bones would be an obvious choice, her apathy towards her job had made him leery about that prospect. When Dumbledore had insisted that he trusted her to do the right thing, Harry had snapped back with a question: was it the same sort of trust he had in Severus Snape?

Telling the other seven about the future completely was fraught with problems as well. They were underage, and therefore would need the consent of their parents. Harry, Moony and Padfoot were special cases, because each knew where the other stood, though the devil was in the details. Telling Susan brought up the problem of telling Amelia again. Hermione had muggle parents, who would just as soon withdraw her. Neville's grandmother was an unknown variable, as was Xenophilius Lovegood. And neither the Headmaster nor the student dared to be the one to tell everything to Molly Weasley. She would first hug her children, then hug Harry and Hermione and then cry over the fate of her unborn grandchildren. Then she would go about planning Ron's wedding to Lavender and attempt to accept the idea of Ginny and Luna together.

No. Fighting Voldemort and Grindelwald was preferable to going up against Molly Weasley at her maternal best. When this problem was explained fully, Ron and Ginny practically begged in jest to **_not_** be told.

In the end, they decided to limit the reveal to a few trusted people – Mad-Eye, Sirius, Remus, as Harry suggested and Dumbledore concurred and Harry conceded upon the topic of Amelia Bones. This would be the first 'batch' of people who'd be told. If he could be convinced to help train the eight, Mad-Eye would be roped in for that as well. Once they received his certificate as people who wouldn't die in battle foolishly (which was the highest praise possible), the next 'batch' would be told. These would be the actual eight and their parents – barring Amelia and Sirius and Remus, of course.

The biggest hitch came in the form of the Dursleys, who had hitherto been the elephants in the room.

 _"_ _Harry, there remains one question left to address. What of the Dursleys?"_

 _"_ _What of them?"_

 _Dumbledore stared at the man. "Surely you must understand the necessity for protection."_

 _"_ _I can protect myself very well, thank you."_

 _"_ _But the protection afforded by the familial bonds..."_

 _"_ _...never existed. They weren't, aren't and will never be my family. Do not presume to know better on that matter."_

 _"_ _So would you leave them alone? You would let them flounder?"_

 _"_ _No. I would introduce them to the Lestranges as the loving relatives of Harry Potter, and for that one time I won't be sarcastic. I am quite sure the two idiots will be unable to resist a spot of muggle torture."_

 _Dumbledore flinched like a scalded cat. "Surely not..."_

 _"_ _As I said, do not presume. I hate them. They hate me. We are well shot of each other. If you want them protected, it's your fucking conscience and your fucking duty. I. Don't. Care!"_

 _The issue was dropped there and then. Dumbledore wasn't sure that Harry wouldn't harm the muggles._

It was late on the 15th of June that Gryffindor's Helmet was found in a secret room at one of the Lestrange properties in Norwood. It was promptly destroyed. Harry wondered whether Sir Doyle was a Wizard who had at one time visited the Lestranges. The construction that Dumbledore described was very peculiarly similar – nay, congruous – to the story of the Norwood Builder. Voldemort was now really half dead. The Diary, the Quill, the Wand, the Helmet were accounted for. With the impending cleansing of the castle slated for mid-July, it would mean one more important piece of the monster gone.

* * *

Fudge had made a wonderful media story where the Boy-Who-Lived witnessed the killing of the true traitor and was reunited with his innocent and victimised godfather, so there was no real danger to him. Harry had personally met the man just before and after to ensure that the Minister understood just what would happen to him if he slipped thereafter in anyway.

 _Harry was sitting in the classroom where he was being allowed to meet Fudge. Well, 'allowed' was a very loose term. Dumbledore had put him up to the 'bad cop' activities again. So Harry sat there in a conjured chair and with a conjured table (courtesy Sirius) in between, his feet propped up and crossed on the latter._

 _Fudge came in at the appointed time, followed by Kingsley and Alastor of all people. Evidently, Fudge believed he needed protection from Harry – a very wise deduction._

 _"_ _Hello Fudge. Sit." He pointed to a chair facing him. He then briefly removed his feet off the table and addressed the two Aurors formally. "I welcome you Aurors. Please have a seat."_

 _Both understood immediately and obeyed._

 _"_ _So, Mr. Fudge," Harry started as his eyes zeroed in on the little shit._

 _"_ _It is Minister Fudge, Harry," the man whimpered condescendingly. It was truly magical how he managed it._

 _"_ _You are alive so long as you are useful to me, Cornelius. And you shall address me as Mr. Potter, or Heir Black. Which reminds me, all the monies gained and items bought off the money Lucius gave you have been reclaimed and liquidated. You shall find yourself poorer by about five hundred thousand galleons."_

 _The Minister paled. He had just received the news that his net worth had been reduced by a quarter. "You can't be Heir Black! It was..."_

 _"_ _...not Draco Malfoy. I understand that you attempted to curry favour based on that. I can, you know, call a motion of no-confidence through Sirius, then put word around about how you have been supporting murderers. Of course, that will reflect upon your reputation nicely, won't it?"_

 _Fudge looked like he had swallowed his tongue._

 _"_ _So I suppose you understand what I have done, and what I can do. Now onwards, you shall show your support to whatever Albus Dumbledore, Amelia Bones and Sirius Black put in front of you. Let me assure you that I have the keys to all you cupboards. I will rather relish letting the skeletons out one juicy bone at a time to the media."_

 _How Cornelius managed to parody Dobby was a question that troubled Harry._

 _"_ _You shall also sign a writ of innocence for Rubeus Hagrid, and you shall give the same reason regarding why he had been put into Azkaban last year. As I remember you saying, "You needed to be seen doing something." Well what you do will be controlled by Sirius. Attempt to stray, and I shall kill you in the middle of the Diagon Alley – or on second thoughts, I will have the public lynch you. You are just a playground bully stealing their lunch money, aren't you?"_

 _"_ _You can't threaten me, Potter!" snarled a quivering Cornelius Fudge with false bravado. The bravado came from the part that he had Aurors with him. He was quivering because he knew that the monster seated opposite him could kill him if he so wanted._

 _"_ _Can't he, Cornelius?" asked Kingsley, brandishing his wand._

 _"_ _You!" sputtered the Minister as he sat numbly in shock._

 _"_ _Yes. You don't honestly think that you really are the Minister, do you? You have hitherto danced to Malfoy's tunes, now it will be to ours."_

 _Fudge had become a good little puppet after that. It was not a big change as far as his situation was concerned, personally. He was a puppet before, and he still was now. Only his master had changed._

* * *

Telling the 'first batch' about the memories, as it turned out, was not a completely good idea.

Amelia looked at him and Dumbledore as if they were insane, as did Moody. Remus sat sadly at the idea of the war, then felt happy about his little family and then felt sadder at losing Sirius, and again on behalf of Harry's family as well. Sirius was a bit irritated, then he saw who Moony married and resisted the urge to punch Remus' nose through the back of his head. His own death was a bit surreal for the mutt. He decided that Bellatrix was insane enough, and wished her a torrid time in hell mentally. His anger at Pettigrew though, knew no bounds. The snivelling rat had had the utter gall to destroy the Potter family again. But as in Azkaban, he internalised the anger and let it out through slow breaths.

"Is this a well thought out prank or are you both insane?" Amelia finally asked.

"I really don't care what you think Bones. I've given you proof during the Hogwarts Hysteria," Harry replied, using the name that the press had privately coined. Amelia winced. "I am giving you all the knowledge, ensuring that that little shit, Voldemort, will be dead by next year, and you are worried about my sanity?"

"But time travel?" asked Amelia weakly.

"Go ask Croaker. The ritual I used is the same one on which the pithy little time turners are based on!"

"If I may interrupt, I have to insist that I believe him. He gave me a piece of information that none of you have, and I am not sure whether I should divulge to anyone. It simply couldn't have been obtained any other way," Albus informed them.

"But time travel is not possible at that scale!"

"I don't see how Mr. Potter returning through time is a greater problem than the continued existence of Voldemort," Albus authoritatively overrode her. "The Quill Mad-Eye collected, the excursion into the Lestrange properties were all for that one reason. Do not fall into a trap that you needn't, Director. We are working against Voldemort. Don't fight against your own side!"

They only received grudging acceptance. It was irrelevant. So long as Voldemort was gone and Harry had everyone he loved alive and well to party when that happened, he couldn't be bothered any less if they believed him or not. In the simplest words, he summarised, "Till Riddle lives, we shall be on one side. After that, so long as you don't fuck with me and mine, I won't trouble you."

Alastor gave an appreciative grunt. The brat had stolen his motto – the real one that is – and used it; it wasn't CONSTANT VIGILANCE. It was 'don't fuck with me or mine'. "I will train yeh."

"Thank you, Mad-Eye. I need you to teach me how to fight."

The grizzled old Auror gave him the gimlet eye. The feeling was overly disconcerting when the blue magical eye glared alongside the narrowed normal one. "Yeh think yeh know better, eh?"

"No. You taught me to stay alive and to kill. That was why I placed an inhibiting bracelet on you the moment you came in, and you don't even know. We didn't have enough time to fight and subdue an opponent long enough to use him then. Now it will be important."

Mad-Eye's eyes widened as he looked at his wrist. Sure enough, he saw the bracelet, and realised that he couldn't cast a spell. Now that he thought of it, his magical eye wasn't working magically either. "Good work there, Potter," he praised grudgingly. "I see you did learn from me."

Harry just inclined his head a touch, keeping both eyes on the man. Mad-Eye grinned. The brat _**had**_ learnt from him.

"You have got a trainer for your band of misfits, Potter," he reaffirmed, completely and truly meaning what he said. "Get them in line and at the ready."

"Yes, Master Moody."

"Does that band of misfits include Susan, again?"

"I would rather that she is included. I would rather like her alive to give me back one of my three god-sprogs," Harry replied dryly. Then completely seriously, he added, "She is a far better interrogator and investigator than even you, if and when you do want to tread on that faction's toes, and that says something."

Amelia ended up with a cross between a grimace and a proud expression. She had heard too much about her niece, who was practically her daughter, on one hand, and had heard the same girl being praised, that made her feel ten feet tall. And she added a wince at the barb about her wilful apathy.

"That brings us nicely to my real question," growled Mad-Eye. It was funny. He never said, or spoke, or interjected or anything. Whatever he wanted to say always came out as a growl. He could have proclaimed that he was happy and would have still ended up growling that out. Most people were convinced that his larynx was composed of rocks.

"Yes?"

"Amelia here knows. She will understand the need for teaching her niece. What about the others?"

Dumbledore had been pondering about the same. "Quite true, Alastor," he agreed. "Questions will be asked regarding why such training is necessary. After all, it is not right that we train children to fight wars that adults should fight and win."

"As we wondered the other day, Headmaster, who – and how – is going to tell the Weasleys? And let's just delegate worrying about Madam Longbottom's reaction," Harry pointed out as he added his two Knuts.

There was an awkward silence. Maelstrom Mother Molly was most certainly not to be trifled with, and that was the tip of the iceberg. They had a Wizengamot member to contend with. The only thing that could be done was to convince their parents that it was better for their children to learn the methods of Mad-Eye and not need them instead of the other way around.

At long last, Amelia volunteered. "I will explain things to Gus and Molly..."

"Were you male, I would have made a comment about having balls of steel, but I am sure you wouldn't appreciate that," Harry deadpanned. He received incredulous glares and snorts in response. "However, you realise that you will have to give them something to help digest all that, don't you?"

Amelia groaned. Of course, that would be the case. People had the propensity to be righteously indignant about matters if it was the kids taking the initiative, even if in some cases the very same people had done nothing but sit back and twiddle their thumbs. "Merlin's hairy armpit, it's going to be a nightmare!" she groaned. She looked to Dumbledore and Mad-Eye for some way out of the mess.

Mad-Eye backed out immediately. "You volunteered for it, Missy. Don't you dare look to me for answers now!" he commanded.

"I have no solution at hand either," Dumbledore added hastily.

The two me received filthy glares from the aggrieved Madam Bones.

An axe he may have had to grind with her, but Harry was in a fairly generous mood. "I do have something to help you out over this."

"Yes?"

"It's not necessary to make them feel out of their depth, is it? There' something regarding deep, soul magic that they can do for me."

Dumbledore felt cold ride up his spine. Was this the method by which Harry would reveal how he had had his scar purged? That wasn't a scary prospect by itself, but if he even implied that he, Albus Dumbledore, had waited for sixteen years to do the deed, Albus was sure that he would be torn to shreds.

"Soul magic?" questioned Amelia with a frown.

"Yes. You see, the future-knowledge-bearing part of me is not truly of this time and place. I loved my Hermione, my children and my friends who were my only true family. That world is now lost beyond repair."

"Yes," agreed Amelia, cautiously.

"Well, as you mightn't know, my scar is a receptacle of dark magic. It needs to be treated. Professor Dumbledore needed three more years to find the solution. I would say that many hands will make light work here. I need to be sent on to my 'next great adventure' to join my family, and the Harry of this time needs to be kept here. This needs to be done either at the same time as Voldemort dies, or after he dies, so that the more ruthless part of me is available for the fight. You could always pitch the research as helping me on."

Albus felt only marginally relieved. It was a none-too-subtle jab to remind him that the purging ritual had to be conducted as well. He had however, not thought of the prospects of the future Harry needing to go on. It struck home – the need, the urge to go back to his family. It was what he wished for, for several years after the defeat of Gellert Grindelwald. At that moment he felt genuine sympathy, and dare he say it, empathy for the boy/man in front of him.

"That would do," he agreed. "Though to be safe, they will have to consent to being bound by oaths, this is something that they will deem more dangerous than the training itself."

"And why would you not ask help from the Department of Mysteries for this?"

Albus actually smiled grimly as he answered, "Augustus Rookwood."

"He is in jail!" Amelia scoffed.

"And needs to be put down at the earliest," interjected Harry. "He knows too much, and even Voldemort values his knowledge. Perhaps you will understand it better when I tell you that we found out that he was the only Death Eater that Voldemort never tortured."

"That apart," argued the Headmaster, "I don't trust them. Worse still, I fear that they might remand my student to research custody. I will say this just once. The Ministry only feared that I might try and take over in the timeline that Harry is from. I will actually do that if such a travesty, as I fear the DoM may participate in, comes to reality and fruition." Dumbledore's tone was calm on the surface, but it held every hint of menace that the most powerful wizard of his generation could muster – and that was a lot.

The stilted nod he received in return told him that his threat was taken as intended. It was grim, but Albus knew that like everyone else, he too had been given a second chance. It was too precious to waste.

* * *

The next afternoon found Harry smothered in a Molly Weasley hug that threatened to do the job for Voldemort. This was of course after Poppy Pomfrey, who had been asked to be ready for a medical emergency in case someone took the matters badly, had surreptitiously checked Ginny and Ron, and the twins as well, for any bruising on their abdomen due to constriction.

"You poor dear!" the maternal lady sobbed. "I can't imagine having to take such steps."

Harry couldn't respond as he was struggling for breath, only managing to flip the bird at Ron who was grinning in a "better-you-than-me" way from behind his mother's back. Molly released him when he started to struggle a bit.

Patting her shoulder weakly, he attempted to console her, "You have to understand Mrs. Weasley that for Gin, Ron and I, there really was no other solution left. Ron and I lost our wives and children. A simple Sunday Brunch at the Burrow where mine and Hermione's children, and Ron and Lavender's brood were spending time with their mothers and Grandpa and Grandma Weasley turned out to be the last moments of their lives." Molly managed to break into a beatific smile when Harry uttered the magic words – Grandma Weasley – before bursting into sobs anew as he continued, "We had to kill all of your bodies. What else could we have done? Desperation drives people to all manners of madness."

Ron cautiously approached his mother. She had freed Harry, but it now seemed that she would very possibly grab him in a hug. That was something he wanted to avoid at the moment. All things said and done, he liked his ribs intact. "Mum?" he called. "You will allow all of us to learn, won't you?"

Molly continued with her sobs for a few more moments, before centring herself with a deep breath and declaring resolutely, "Oh, I am going to do more than that. I am not going to be much help with deep magic, but I am going to learn to fight. All of us are. I will not let those monsters harm my babies this time – and that includes their spouses and friends as well!"

None of the aforementioned 'babies' were sure what to think of that.

* * *

Mrs. Weasley's reaction was the only one of note. She had of course allowed her children to see the future, and had also accepted Luna into her family. She had resumed her duties as the Matron/Warden of the Headquarters, though with much more ease. Sirius' iron rule on his house ensured that the little shit, Kreacher, and the portrait of Walburga would bother nobody. Molly always had a temper, and they had later found the first time around, that the combination of the House's inherent darkness, the presence of the Horcrux and the two remnants of the Blacks before Sirius only exacerbated the problem.

The Browns had to be memory charmed because they decided that it was dangerous for their daughter. Lavender was not brought into the fold, something that caused Harry much strife. He had come to genuinely like his best mate's wife as a friend. The two were very well suited to each other, and he wondered whether he would have to pull a Ron for them.

Augusta had accepted her role among the researchers, as had Remus, while Sirius and Amelia got into the Ministry. Xenophilius only smiled and asked whether he would be allowed to run a story regarding Stubby Boardman's return making it possible for the Hobgoblins to unite and help save the world. Both had allowed their children to be trained. In Neville's case, the training would eventually go a long way to making him confident, something that had started with having his own wand. Madam Pomfrey took Luna under her wing.

It was Hermione's parents though, that had been the greatest roadblocks as far as the time traveller could discern. They were non-magical. And Hermione had been hurt enough in her first two years. He quite forgot that the woman who was and would be his wife was far too clever to let something like that stop her.

 _Alan and Agatha listened in rapt silence as Hermione wove a story regarding a prophetic dream, and supplemented it with her test scores._

 _At long last Alan spoke. "So these people will covet you for your abilities, but are not good?"_

 _"_ _Yes Daddy."_

 _"_ _And you and your friends want to learn to magically protect yourselves even better because of that?"_

 _"_ _Yes."_

 _"_ _It will help you?"_

 _"_ _Yes."_

 _Alan lapsed into a silence and then glanced at his wife, who agreed with a grim nod._

 _"_ _Alright, you can take up this special training."_

 _Hermione had convinced her parents that the 'dream' was about a group of terrorists who would value her brains and power but would harm the world, and that she and her friends were going to undergo special training to prevent her from being harmed. Harry, Ron, Neville, Susan and Ginny quite vociferously agreed, while Luna serenely commented that Hermione would be gaining abilities that way helped sway the Grangers towards allowing their daughter to participate._

Truly, Hermione could sometimes be a real piece of work. What fourteen year old so successfully manipulated their parents?


	5. Chapter 5

**The Penultimate Horcrux and a Powwow**

A/N: The first part of this Chapter contains a different view of the Chamber business. The Chamber business, the perceived reluctance of Dumbledore to purchase mature Mandrakes to cure the petrified people, and his failure to stop Harry's ostracism is an oft used trope in Dumbledore-bashing. From a non-basher's point of view, I present the trope herewith. Lucius Malfoy, the child-murderer, **_wanted_** the Diary's effects to be unleashed on innocent children. Obviously he had to have taken steps to ensure that he would succeed.

Secondly, the most common tropes for bashing Dumbledore – Dumbledore, in canon, never really spoke either way about killing enemies in battle, nor did he use the phrase "Greater good" that I can remember. It is likely that he doesn't mind the former, so long as it is justified and legally ratified. Rowling never told us.

There are some enjoyable stories with Dumbledore-bashing, no doubt about it, but when all the world's evils are laid at his feet, with Death Eaters like Malfoy or Snape redeemed or worse, forgiven, just because people like the actors who played the characters (can that even be a real reason?), it is just plain stupid.

There are some things that he is culpable of, and he will be called out on that. No bashing is taken to mean that they recognise that there are outstanding issues and will try to resolve them like mature adults and not caricatures.

In memoriam Harmonious Cannons.

* * *

Having camped out at Hogwarts as a refugee for some time, Harry had known exactly how strong the castle was. He had till then always scoffed at the idea of Hogwarts being the safest place in the world – his experiences had always been to the contrary. Once they had invoked Hogwarts as a fortress, though, they had found out why it **_was the safest place._**

 _Voldemort had launched a determined assault on the castle and had laid siege. Armed with the fighters among her residents, the quasi-sentient had then retaliated with the defences the ancients and the Founders had equipped her with._

 _"_ _I am still astounded by this," Hermione had said._

 _"_ _Why?" Harry asked with forced levity. "Is it because of the castle's defences, or Ron's willingness to control his gluttony?"_

 _Hermione had not smiled at her husband's attempt at a joke. "You do know that the castle is influencing us, don't you? Ron is not conscious or cognisant of the fact that he is eating less than half what he usually does."_

 _"_ _That's one less thing to worry about." Ron, while otherwise an all-round good person, whined a lot if he went without– anyone who had grown up eating Molly Weasley's food would have. It could have damned the moral in times like these, when otherwise it would be something to laugh about. "Still, it's not the most impressive thing, is it?" They were stood in an alcove that had an arching window which allowed those within to see without and not the other way round. In years past, it would have been a brilliant place for a snog-session. Now it was being used for its real purpose, as a watch-point._

 _They watched as the Curse Breakers in Voldemort's employ tried to drain the castle's wards of power, only to fail once again. The castle was so old, and so saturated with magic, that it would take more than the troop of twenty that were working. No less than at least ten times that would suffice. The repeated attacks were working against the Death Breakers. When they attempted to drain the wards the first time, they were partially successful – just as an unscrupulous roadside vendor is when he sells his customer nine hundred and ninety five gram of salt instead of a full thousand. The next time, the sentience of the castle had reversed the attack and had drained them of their power instead._

 _As if that wasn't enough, the castle would replicate a tank and bomb out sections of the siege randomly with massive magical bolts. Somehow someone had updated Hogwarts' sentience with muggle fantasy literature, for every so often, they could swear that they saw an Ent or two cutting through swathes of Death Eaters._

 _Voldemort had had to accept defeat and pull of the siege after three months._

In pre-war peace time, Hogwarts was not showing her cards, obviously. She was as a stone castle (albeit a magical one) was expected to be. Silent, and abiding by the rules that the Headmaster had set. The truth was that the castle was a power unto herself and she had only accepted Dumbledore's stewardship.

Dumbledore, it seemed, had decided to trust a Marauder and his godson a bit too much. He stayed out of their way, only coming in when they encountered something that they either couldn't understand or needed help dealing with, or when they needed communication with the castle's wards. Instead, he spent time carefully studying the memories Harry had provided. The actions or inaction of international bodies were his concern as the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. More importantly, he had gone after the ring _._

 _Time, it seemed, had a weird sense of humour. As a teaching aid, Remus had shown Harry his memory of the day when Dumbledore had taken the Marauder along on his sole successful Horcrux-destruction mission. Slytherin, while not a Dark Wizard, was an absolute playboy. He had created a cosy little place just outside Shropshire for one of his various dalliances. It was there that Voldemort had hidden the Ring. It had drained Dumbledore a lot to bring down the traps and wards, when instead the Parsel pass phrase, "The Master demands entry!" would have sufficed. This time around, Harry had directed the Headmaster and Remus to the place. Once they had found it, Remus had just turned on his Marauder's Mirror and Harry had helped them access the place._

 _It was funny and ridiculously easy. But after what the time traveller and his accomplices had had to bear in the future, even they were due a bit of good luck every now and then._

This _carte blanche_ meant that the twain found more secret passages to Hogsmeade, Sirius imitated a wine connoisseur when confronted by the criminal behaviour of people who had abandoned Firewhiskey bottles and got pissed in the process, and the two pulled more pranks on each other than Sirius and James had ever pulled through seven years of school.

In the little time that they could spare after these activities during the first week after term end, they cleaned the school a bit. In other words, they cleaned out the Room of Lost things, the room of hidden things, and the room of dark things completely, working at least fourteen hours a day. Harry was employing the skills Moony and Bill had brute-forced into him till just before the latter's death, and also a bit afterwards. Just because they were revelling in Sirius' freedom didn't mean that they had forgotten about Voldemort. It was just Sirius deciding that sleeping was a terrible waste of the remaining ten hours of the day if they were too serious about things.

Thereafter, however, their work picked up pace. There were no hidden rooms within the castle, as Dumbledore, who was consistently communicating with the wards, confirmed. The Chamber was known to at least a few, so it wasn't exactly hidden. The rest of the seventh floor didn't take time at all, and was done in two days. Another week saw them polishing off three more floors without any significant results (Tom Riddle's Shield had been destroyed using Fiendfyre). So finally, Dumbledore gave them a go ahead for the Sacking of the Chamber, as the Marauder named it. This time though, Sirius practically demanded Dumbledore's presence. His wisdom, knowledge and experience had no parallels. Well that was an exaggeration, as there were a few mages of his stature they could call upon, not to mention people like Nicholas Flamel, who was expected to live another three decades at the very least, but with Dumbledore's resources and availability, it was a bit too pointless given the timeframe they wanted things done in.

* * *

"Are you ready?" Harry asked his godfather and Headmaster. He was particularly worried about the latter. Fawkes had taken a liking to the mutt and was rather liberal with his weekly supply of tears, so Sirius had made a miraculous recovery. It did nothing for his perception of humour though. It was as much of the doghouse version as it was before.

Dumbledore though, was an aged man. A slide and a broom ride back wasn't exactly his description of an action during his daily routine. "We can make a pulley and seat for you if you want, sir."

Dumbledore took the concern as an insult. "I am old, but not that old."

"I wasn't implying that, sir. I am just worried about your creaky joints."

"You know, you were a nice little kid before," the Headmaster grumbled. "Why did that change?" Harry stifled a grin. Dumbledore saw that, and glared at his student. "Let's see who lasts longer in the chamber, young whippersnapper. The first to drop is a nerf herder." Then without further ado, he jumped through the pipe, whooping with apparent glee.

"Nerf Herder?" asked Harry of nobody in particular – and certainly not of Sirius. "When did he watch Star Wars?" He just shrugged and hissed, "Stairs," and hopped on, with a bewildered Sirius following suit. He then hissed, "Move," and the stairs acted as a rotating escalator.

Dumbledore was standing at the bottom with a scowl. "You pulled a prank on me!"

"Yes!" replied Harry with a grin. "But you enjoyed it!"

Dumbledore just harrumphed as he could hardly gainsay the pronouncement. This was vintage Dumbledore, the man who was a big kid at heart, would happily slide down a tunnel, ate sherbet lemon till even diabetes itself would worry, and who always believed the best of people, sometimes to his own detriment. The powerful persona, and the manipulative one as well, was one he had to don from time to time to stay on top of the game because nobody else opposing Voldemort honestly wanted to raise their hands and claim responsibility – his defeat of Grindelwald had made it his responsibility by default. Now that Harry was willing to take the mantle, if only out of sheer desperation, and was delivering results, Dumbledore could happily go back to being Dumbledore. It was a pitfall of being one of the most powerful magic users of one's time.

A fifteen minute walk later, they had cleared the path to the chamber. They were suitably awed by the skin of course, but none of the three remarked upon it. Harry, though in his thirteen going on fourteen year old body, was an adult.

The two actual adults though were having thoughts running through their minds on parallel tracks. For Sirius it was underlining the fact that he was not around to protect the pup. For Dumbledore, it was self-recrimination that he had failed to protect a twelve year old from that sort of a horror, not to mention the social ostracism. When Harry opened the door leading into the chamber, the gruesome sight of the dead, but extremely well-preserved, basilisk made them stop in their tracks.

Sirius' hands, one holding the wand, had been in the 'at-the-ready' stance. They dropped comically to his sides. His face was purpling in rage – so very much like Vernon. On the other hand, his expression showed that anger was not the dominant emotion. It was fear. It was probable that the sudden change of his colour was due to his attempts to stifle a scream.

Albus clutched at his heart as he staggered to a wall and slid down it. He looked at his student, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He certainly had something to say, but the brain and throat were in disagreement, and he couldn't speak a word.

Harry couldn't help it. The moment he saw Albus slide down, he crowed happily, "Professor, you are a nerf herder."

Albus, who regained his speech after a full five minutes, was not even conscious of the fact that he agreed as he croaked, "I am a nerf herder."

Harry raised his arms to the heavens in exultation. He liked getting one over the old man every once in a while. And this one was legitimate since his return to 1994 – it was based on something he had managed to do before he travelled through time. Truly, Hermione had broken his through any tendency to be overly modest about something of this stature.

"PUP!" shouted Sirius when he finally could speak. "YOU FOUGHT THAT?"

"Yes."

"WHAT AGE WERE YOU?"

"I fought this beastie exactly a year back in this timeline. So I was twelve, nearly thirteen."

"DUMBLEDORE!" shouted Sirius again, this time changing targets. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING ALLOWING THE SCHOOL TO REMAIN OPEN WITH THAT THING AROUND? HOW THE HELL COULD YOU ALLOW CHILDREN TO BE AT THE SCHOOL, ESPECIALLY MY GODSON? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, YOU BUMBLING, SENILE OLD COOT?"

Harry winced at Sirius' volume, though the man's fear for him did warm his heart. Evidently, he did not take very well to Harry being in danger.

Dumbledore was looking at the dead snake woodenly. He turned to Sirius and apologised. "I am sorry. There is nothing I can say in my defence, except the fact that I did my best in the face of opposition from the Board of Governors, at the time led by Malfoy, doing everything to prevent me from closing down the school. As you know, it was Malfoy who slipped the Diary in." Sirius' anger bled away as he comprehended the situation his old Headmaster was in.

Then in a completely uncharacteristic use of obscene language, Dumbledore spat, "The absolute scum-sucker enforced financial audits when he somehow found out that I was diverting funds to acquire mature Mandrake Roots for the reviving potion. Only now that I found out about Severus' true leanings have I realised how he found out. When they removed me, one of the allegations levelled was that I was indulging in corruption."

The two younger men found their respect for the man increasing. He too, after all, was constrained by people he had to answer to, him being a powerful wizard notwithstanding. He had done the best he could within the limits, and for the safety of his students, had also attempted to circumvent the rules and had paid for it. It was hard to not sympathise with his plight, for that was exactly what it was – plight. Just because Dumbledore didn't confide his problems in them, or for that matter in almost anyone, didn't mean they didn't exist. He had tried to protect people, often at quite some cost to himself.

"However, Harry, there was something I should have done. I should have stopped the Heir of Slytherin scandal that surrounded you. I should have revealed who it was. Even if I didn't, I could have helped prove that it wasn't you. You had a horrid year, and I didn't help you enough. For that I am really sorry."

"No. You shouldn't have. In spite of the fact that I was very hurt by the lack of protection, from the memories and understanding of a thirty five year old man who lived the war, I can completely understand and accept your actions."

Dumbledore almost smiled. He knew that the apology had been accepted for what it was worth, but more than that, he was pleased to find that the one he wanted to anoint as his successor was indeed worthy of that. Harry had certainly found an argument in his favour, and more importantly, understood how the situation had panned out. He might not have trusted a teenaged Harry Potter enough, but this man in front of him – the one who had the innocence of the thirteen-year-old, and his resilience, and the experience and wisdom, as well as the memories of the thirty five year-old – this man had his complete trust, and respect as well.

Sirius however couldn't follow either the logic or the thoughts of the two men, for men they were. Moreover, there was the latent parental instinct that chaffed against the injustice meted out to his godson. "How can you say that?"

"You are missing a vital piece of information, Sirius. The Professor had verified the truth already. He had called me into his office soon after the first attack. I suppose he used Legillimency – I doubt I would have reacted well to an accusation on his part or even a question from him, especially after Fawkes had just had a burning day with only me present. I remember that during the meeting, he had said that he knew that it wasn't me."

"And how does that justify the treatment you received?"

"It doesn't justify the treatment, Sirius. Even he isn't trying to **_justify_** the treatment. He used it? Yes. He never justified it. Let me construct the situation for you, ignoring the retrospective information about Madam Bones or any information about the Horcruxes."

"Please do so, for I can't understand how you can be blasé about it."

Harry obliged with a nod. "Imagine you are in his position. Now you know who the last Heir of Slytherin was. You know that said person is not dead. You know that the previous confrontation had this un-dead wraith possessing another human. There were so many ways in which Voldemort could have achieved immortality, and you don't know for sure which way has been employed. I myself know of ten which he could have used and remained in the form he was when he possessed Quirrel."

Sirius was seeing the picture in his mind's eye, constructing Dumbledore's position as it was explained to him. He had followed everything up to this point. He nodded to relay that.

"Now there are messages to warn the enemies of the Heir. So your suspicion as to who is confirmed. But how is this person operating? You start to check your students and staff, none of whom you have contact with on a constant, daily basis. This can only be done during random walks through the castle, or during meal times. This confirms that no student is possessed in the same manner as the previous year, nor is any staff member. The only new staff member was Lockhart." Here he turned a glare at Dumbledore.

"I didn't have either of you last year. As a twelve-year-old you would have made a better teacher. Alas, as it was, only he was the person who even bothered to apply. Not that he remembers it anymore. Had I forwarded a request to the Ministry, I am sure..."

All people present gave involuntary shudders. The Ministry had wanted a foothold inside Hogwarts for years. Dumbledore's presence had denied them that. Politically, the school was to be a neutral ground. Lucius controlling the Minister as it were meant that there was a major possibility of propaganda situations. And then again, they also had the situation with Umbridge which Harry had lived through.

"Anyway, possession is active and passive as we know. It can also be insidiously inconspicuous as Ginny experienced. Tom didn't need a prolonged period of possession to cause the attacks. So any time when Ginny was visible – or rather, was allowed to be visible, Tom was dormant to the point of being indistinguishable, and when she wasn't, well I am sure you can understand."

Dumbledore really smiled. Harry really had understood. He remained quiet as he let his protégé, for that was what he would always consider Harry to be, explain the situation to his godfather. It was a pity that pensieves didn't capture the thought process, only the memories. Harry had grown into a wise wizard, and that wisdom would very soon be necessary. Dumbledore knew that his time would end soon. In Harry, he could see a wizard who was magically and cerebrally capable of being the leader he had been thought to be for so long. And Harry had the added power of an inherited seat on the Wizengamot. It filled Dumbledore with both pride and relief.

"So now," continued Harry, "you narrow the suspicion down to a dark artefact. We saw how many dark artefacts were in Hogwarts over the past few weeks. What was one more? Your first instinct is to close down the castle and protect the other students. Dark Detectors have been always used by Gringotts, and even by Hogwarts, during Voldemort's first attempt for absolute power. They could be employed again as the students exited the castle.

"But you are overruled. Since you have shown your hand that way, you can't even declare what the threat to the school exactly is. If you do so, the parents will rebel, and remove their children en masse. The Board will remove you. For those that cannot be withdrawn for whatsoever reason, and there are always some of those, there is no protection. It takes you no closer to stopping the attacks. You can call on the support of your teachers, but as the Mandrake situation showed, there is a mole within the ranks. It doesn't help that the Minister of Magic is in the pockets of your chief opponent, a known supporter of the perpetrator.

"Now you are faced with a conundrum – do you check the personal belongings of every person in the castle, and risk the perpetuator being tipped off or do you draw the person out? The first option has the pitfall of the person lying low indefinitely, and then starting over at a later date. Or even worse, you risk pissing the person or persons off, inviting more attacks."

Sirius could see how Dumbledore had been caught between the devil and the deep sea. He really had no 'good' option. He still couldn't relate it to Prongslet's ostracism. "You are still not explaining how that relates to you!"

"Have patience, Sirius. Can you put yourself in Dumbledore's place and imagine yourself taking the actions that I just enumerated?"

"I can."

"Now you see suspicion being laid squarely on one student, a student who has displayed the very abilities that would mark him as a suspect. And yet, this is the student that you are sure is not the perpetrator. This person becomes a lightning rod for the problems, drawing the general public's attention from the real troublemaker, leaving you to concentrate on him or her, depending on who or what the instrument was."

"And Albus had already assured you that he knew that it wasn't you."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Harry. "In a way, it was a certificate of his trust, though he was wrong to forget that I was only twelve, just a kid. He trusted me to be resilient, and to get through the matter unscathed emotionally and morally. I am not saying that I wasn't hurt, or that it was the best way out. I could have been taken into confidence. As a twelve year old, I resented the fact that none of the teachers bothered to even stand for me. They could have stopped the really nasty abusers – and it was always verbal or passive aggressive tactics – by stepping in. Had he taken me into confidence, it is likely that I would have treated it as a mission and been more vigilant. This he could have done. But with what he told us about the situation, the one going on in the Boardroom, I can understand how it could have slipped his mind. He is human after all. Would I have done it the same way? I am not sure. But it would always be one of the options. When my torment ended, they had already removed Professor Dumbledore. It was far worse to see Hermione petrified."

Dumbledore walked towards Harry and gave him a genuine pat on the back and said with a suspiciously thick voice, "I have been having situation after situation where I have been proud that you are my student. This is the most important of them all yet. I am sure that when eventually you have to handle the Wizengamot, you will prove yourself quite up to the task. And you will not make the mistake of disregarding the people who help you, even inadvertently. You proved today that you can think from the other side as well."

Harry accepted that with a nod. He still did not revere Dumbledore, but he respected the man a lot.

The moment was soon broken when Albus cleared his throat and clapped his hands. "Now as to this specimen, I think we should render it down. To the victor go the spoils."

"Who can render it?"

"Hagrid is a Beast Master in all but legal notarisation, my boy. One of the prerequisites is being able to render beasts. I am sure that he will be miserable that the snake died, though. He and his ubiquitous umbrella can work the required magic." He sighed. "Now that Cornelius no longer dances to Lucius' tunes, we can get him to sign an exoneration notice for Hagrid as well. "We need to be seen doing something", indeed," he mocked bitterly.

Hagrid was to be brought in later. At the moment, they had a more important thing to deal with. So between the three, they managed to conjure a cart-table, the sort of which the Lilliputians built for Gulliver, directly under the carcass. The elves from the castle were called in to assist them in pushing the cart to the far side, once every area that would be blocked was checked thoroughly. Soon they had almost every loose object in the main Chamber checked. There really wasn't much. Most of the loose things were the debris left from the intense battle between the boy and the snake.

A thing about the Horcruxes was that the smaller the object, the easier it was to bind the soul piece to it. Splitting the soul cost a tremendous drain on the magic, for it was only done through a ritual. Enchanting a large object in such a state would be absolutely impossible even for an overpowered idiot of Voldemort's class.

"Harry, I think it is time to open the face," Sirius called from where he was working, confirming that he had not found anything.

"Wait!" cautioned Dumbledore. "We don't know what surprises may lurk inside." He summoned an elf and asked for three roosters and three vials of a potion. He quickly doused them in the potion which turned them phosphorescent. At his companions' questioning glances he explained, "They will provide light, will provide protection from surprises like these (he pointed to the basilisk), and won't trigger any traps activated by active magic."

The light was unnecessary, for it seemed Slytherin liked to have light around him. There were surprises a-plenty, though. Tom had a long-running fixation with muggle explosives. He had smuggled in bombs from the World War II.

There, in one of the rooms, sat the Sheath of the Sword of Gryffindor. For anyone who wasn't expecting a trap, that was what they would see – no trap. But that was a trap by itself. Sirius, Albus and Harry were checking for traps and sure enough they found them. There was a disillusionment charm, spread all over something in the room. Beneath it were just two more charms, tied into each other – a stasis charm and a temporal suspension charm.

"I can get a read on them, but this is nothing I have ever encountered before," Sirius declared as he looked up from the rough calculations he was making. "The charms are the same, even though they have an amplified effect, but there is something wrong. The activation factors are roots of a cubic equation instead of a quadratic. You see the trigger factor? It should not be equal to the solutions of the dispelling charms' equations. The actual dispelling trigger makes no sense to me at all."

He may not have taken arithmancy, but Harry had been given a fair introduction to the subject by his wife. "You are saying that the normal dispelling charm will not work, aren't you?"

"Yes. In fact, it is one of the three triggers!"

"We should step out of here for a while." They followed him to the main chamber, where he grabbed a piece of debris and disillusioned it in Parseltongue. Then he removed the disillusionment using Parseltongue again. He then handed his wand to Dumbledore, who performed the Priori Incantato spell. Sirius, understanding what had transpired, used the values now generated and verified the results.

"Parsel it is," he confirmed. They quickly replicated the results for the spell isolation, and for the dispelling charms for the other two charms, with positive results. They were now confident enough to tackle the problem, or so they felt.

When Harry removed the disillusionment charm, they were treated to the sight of several toads sitting on chicken eggs which were just about to crack. The whole system was frozen in time. Even worse, there was a live basilisk, albeit a young one, which was being caged by a structure which would collapse if the sheath was moved in any way. It was thankfully hibernating. Again the spell to ensure that was tied to the pressure spell.

"What a bloody fiendish bastard!" Sirius hissed, as the three automatically averted their eyes.

Wasting not a moment more, Dumbledore cast powerful confounding charms on the roosters and made them crow to an imaginary sunrise before grasping the younger men's shoulders and rushing out. Taking the hint, Sirius escaped taking Harry with him. They stood at charm-casting distance from where Harry dispelled the charms and Dumbledore kept up the confounding. One rooster's crow was fatal to a full grown basilisk, so the live one and hatchlings were quickly taken care of.

Thankfully, Tom's arrogance had come into play. Assuming that there would never be another Parselmouth until he sired an Heir, he had placed no more traps. Dumbledore summoned Fawkes (and the wizards slapped their heads at missing the rather obvious solution of having Fawkes flash the object to them instead of disabling the traps, irrespective of the pressure trap – though there would have been too many basilisks left in the Chamber) with the Sword once they were sure of the identity and the contained Dark magic, and that was that. Tom Riddle was one more Horcrux down. With the destruction of Voldemort's wand and his Diary, Gryffindor's War Helmet, Hufflepuff's Quill, Slytherin's Locket and Ring, and the Sheath of Gryffindor's Sword, Tom was more than three quarters of his way to hell. Only Ravenclaw's Shield remained.

"Now we have to find a way to get within Death Eater Vaults in Gringotts," sighed Harry.

"Why there?"

"When I was first introduced to the magical world, Hagrid said that Gringotts was the safest place in the world, besides Hogwarts. I don't know whether Tom had any vaults to call his own, but his Death Eaters certainly did. I can easily imagine the Death Eaters providing their master the best available protection."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. A moment later, his Phoenix Patronus left to find Amelia Bones.

It was then time to leave. This time, however, Harry did not open the door – he just conjured a stiff backed chair and sat on it, his eyes more chiselled jade than glowing emerald. "You know, I forgave, understood, and even accepted a lot of the decisions taken unilaterally in my case. There is one thing that I still can't get my head around, Chief Warlock."

Sirius and Dumbledore stopped in their tracks, the former in confusion and slight anger, and the latter in resigned supplication.

"I know."

"And what does one make of you knowing?"

"At the time I honestly believed..."

"Honestly believed? You bloody circumvented the fucking law!"

"The evidence..."

"It was non-existent! He had no trial!"

"I did try for one though I was unsympathetic to his case," Dumbledore weakly defended. "Minister Bagnold was the acting Chief Witch at the time, probably to ensure that the majority of the pureblood faction went scot free. It was not my position."

"Yet Snape got you standing for him in spite of him being a marked Death Eater. Your testimony that Sirius was the Secret Keeper was perjury!" Dumbledore's resistance crumbled at that. "I can move past anything against me, but an innocent man was rotting in hell!"

With a heavy sigh, Dumbledore turned to Sirius. "AS Chief Warlock Incumbent since 1982, I could have called for a trial. I did not. I offer you my unconditional apology, for what it is worth."

Sirius was not feeling quite forgiving, but knowing that for all his mistakes, Dumbledore was still an ally and human, he just nodded ambivalently. There was no particular need to drudge that up at a time when thee certainly were more pressing concerns. He had his bit to add however. "Harry may have forgiven you far too easily, on his account, but one day you and I are going to have a discussion about his life for the decade after 1981."

Looking every bit his hundred and sixty five years, Dumbledore nodded resignedly. His mistakes, commensurately larger given the positions he assumed, had a bad habit of coming home to roost at the most inopportune times. Not exposing Bagnold and the Death Eaters entrenched within her administration was one of them. Everything snowballed from there.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Less Dramatic Solution – A Surgical Strike**

A/N: I know I had said that this would be last, but I personally don't like the idea of a fifteen thousand word mammoth, so I split it into two and an epilogue. Those two will be up by tomorrow morning, India time.

* * *

The group consisting of Madam Longbottom, Professor Dumbledore and Filius Flitwick (all three were dab hands at understanding and creating rituals – Augusta was brought up as a follower of the old ways) were seated at the table in the former's office, working over the solution to Harry's problem. Harry had provided them with all the material, in books and in memories, regarding the exorcism and time travel ritual. They had started with the latter first.

"I had no idea that this ever existed," Filius commented excitedly. "Just look at this ritual! They sacrificed twenty two Death Eaters, one for each of the years they wished to travel back! Just think of the sheer magic it must have taken, the sheer power consumed!"

Dumbledore, lately the one of the lighter moods, had to suppress a snigger at the Charms Master's zeal and enthusiasm. "The question, my dear Filius, is not about the ritual itself, but about dealing with its effects. We know by now, that Bartemius Crouch Junior has become the unwitting, but not unwilling receptacle of Snape's memories. The problem we are dealing with is to catch him and his master in whatever body he is, and to eliminate them, while at the same time, helping the older Harry on to the Next Great Adventure."

"And that's what I am not sure of."

"What?"

"The older Harry is nothing more than a bunch of memories, isn't it?"

"Not really, no," answered Dumbledore thoughtfully. I have had the chance to observe both. The younger Harry is very much as you'd expect a teenager to be – a little naive, rebellious, curious. But the older one is a different animal altogether. He made the decisions that led to the 'Hogwarts Hysteria'," he added with a snigger. The alliterated name amused him a lot. "What I am trying to say is that the older Harry is a consciousness that can fight and win against Voldemort, had this happened a decade later. The younger Harry is the innocence tempering the older warrior. If we have to survive beyond Voldemort, we need both."

"What do you mean?"

"The older one is wise, and effective, like a well-forged blade. But a blade still has an edge, and therefore must be sheathed and should be used drawn only when necessary. A sword, on its own, can either become dull and rusted, or can cut."

"You are worried that he will go Dark?"

"Who is bereft of Darkness, Filius? I am not, you are not, and Harry isn't. We are humans. There always is a primal desire to hurt those who hurt us, to annihilate the enemy. For Harry with Voldemort, the enemy is very real. The older Harry embraced the Darkness, if only out of desperation. It gave him a different perspective. I want that preserved, for the Harry of the current time to learn it."

Filius nodded. "Experience is the best teacher," he sagely agreed. Here Harry had the chance to learn from his own experiences of a future that would never come. "So why let him go?"

Dumbledore sighed and then steepled his fingers, before resting his wrinkled forehead on them. "If the older Harry is kept in this place where he has nothing and nobody left, he will go insane, with or without those memories. There will always be a sense of something missing. This Ms. Granger is not the wife he had children with, nor are Misters Weasley and Longbottom his friends from the future, as Sirius and Remus were for James. He shall forever remain a welcome guest, but still an outsider. And that will make him see enemies where there aren't any. No. I will not let that young man become a paranoid old codger."

Filius frowned at the grim but real picture that Albus was painting. It was true. And he owed it to Lily, but more importantly the boy himself, to help him.

Augusta then had something to suggest. "Let us work towards preserving a part of the older Mr. Potter's presence. I would suggest that you get him to write a diary or memoir of some sort. What? Why? When? How? The younger Harry will have his questions answered by himself."

Dumbledore suppressed a shudder. Augusta was suggesting a very well-known bit of magic, actually. It was called the ghost book, and was similar to the magical paintings of dead people in that it replicated the memories or nature and consciousness of the subject. Unfortunately, it was too close for comfort to Tom Riddle's Diary.

"It is worth considering," he offered, a bit patronisingly and very noncommittally. And it was. Only, the idea would have to be reworked into something similar, yet different. It would be a long forever till Albus, and Albus was certain about Harry as well, would ever feel comfortable around Diaries that communicated back with the writer.

It was at that precise moment that Remus Lupin, the last member of the research quartet stumbled into the room set aside for the research, and collapsed into a chair. He looked absolutely woebegone. In fact, he rather looked like a man who was waiting for the impending surety of the death of a loved one.

"Remus?" ventured Filius. Ever since the werewolf had been reunited with that scamp of a best friend of his, Sirius Black, and his nephew in all ways that mattered, Filius had seen the man transform and live his true age of thirty three. Well, with more maturity, but then that was a trait developed in his schooldays when he roamed with Sirius Black and James Potter – and the traitor, out of necessity.

Remus only let out a stuttering breath in response.

"You were not successful in your search." Augusta had sussed out the truth of the matter immediately.

"Yes." Remus' voice was small and it was breaking. "I searched every exorcism ritual I could get my hands on – some even requiring human sacrifice. It's for the cub, so..." he cleared his throat a bit. "Anyway, I found the one the older Albus used. I found several more that have since bled over into the muggle world. They are all useless." He then dropped his head into his hands and his knees became elbow-rests.

"But..." Albus started to protest. They couldn't have it. Harry had to be cleansed and protected at any cost. "Why?" he finally asked.

"Exorcism as an act refers to freeing a soul's true body from an encroachment, a trespassing. The rituals were designed because the trespasser was murderous. It is almost universally true. Similarly, all accounts of successful exorcisms have worked on only those subjects that were innocent. Harry isn't – he willingly killed Pettigrew, Snape and McNair, not to mention Umbridge."

"That makes no sense, Remus. In both timelines, Harry killed Quirunus Quirrel. I have seen the memory, as have you. Harry mightn't have wanted to kill, but he knew he was hurting Quirrel and kept at it. Yet he was exorcised the last time around of the shard."

"That was what stumped me as well. I had a hunch. But I discarded it."

"Let's hear it, at least."

"Voldemort was corporeal when Harry was exorcised of his bit. The soul had somewhere to go, if you hadn't banished it. In the available accounts of successful exorcisms, the possessing entity had no body. In this case, it did. That was the only difference. The way I saw it, Harry's actions, taken purely in self-defence and Voldemort having a corporeal body introduced magical singularities of some sort."

The other three wore constricted expressions. Finally Filius tried to say what they all wanted to. "That...er...seems to be a bit too far-fetched, Remus."

"I know. It was why I discarded it. There is one more theory – Voldemort took Harry's blood and was just a magical construct. It is probable that when the shard was exorcised, it joined up with the main piece. And I also had another far–fetched one regarding Harry surviving because of a potent mix of basilisk tears and..." he yawned widely, "phoenix venom."

His audience blinked.

"Have you taken notes, Remus?"

"Yes. I have been doing that for the past three days."

"I assume you haven't slept even a bit."

"Not sure," the werewolf mumbled in response.

"Go sleep!" Augusta commanded. Remus shuffled out without protest.

"Do you think he is taking this a bit too seriously? He is so jumbled up without rest that he is hardly retaining any coherence, not to mention talking about Phoenix Venom."

"Of course he is. Everyone knows the alternative. I can hardly imagine Remus being willing to lose the child of his best friends."

"Speak to Sirius, then!"

"I do want to have the school still standing on the first of September."

The three shared a hearty chuckle, before they calmed down. "You did dismiss Remus' ideas as being far-fetched, Filius..."

"You don't honestly believe that, do you?"

"...but I fear that he may have been onto something with the second."

"Blood magic?" asked Augusta.

"It is a dichotomy, Augusta. Blood is a highly magical substance, yet it is equally so irrespective of the being and whether or not said being is magical. It's not only dragon blood that has uses, you know."

"So you mean to say that Voldemort, magically, became a warped kind of clone of Harry?" asked Filius sceptically.

"These are uncharted waters. When Albus told me about the matter, I felt so completely out of my depth, and still do, as a matter of fact. Split souls, time travel, arcane magic and all that; it seems surreal to me. What Remus was probably trying to say was that the ritual had no precedent when it was performed then, and probably still doesn't. Will it fail because of the killings? We do not and cannot know for sure. We need to decipher the notes to get some direction."

"Now that I think of it, Remus' explanation would make sense if it takes into account the missing information," Filius mused aloud. "When Harry had only killed Quirrel, the same entity possessed both the combatants. How was it murder of or by anyone then? With the others in this timeline, Harry has destroyed that particular singularity."

That made sense. And it aged Dumbledore momentarily. He couldn't coast along on his temporal counterpart's work. On the other hand, this meant that he would have to and would get to learn new magic. That cheered him a bit.

Remus' notes proved to be a treasure trove of information. There were just so many, many, rituals that the man had researched. After a point, it was quite obvious that it was not directed research as it was desperation. He had only now gotten to meet his nephew, only to have to face the prospect of the boy being snatched away. Neither seemed able to catch a break.

A scribble in the margin was a 'what if' as well. What if all the shards except Harry's scar, were eliminated along with the consciousness of Voldemort? Harry could happily live a life, and the shard would die once Harry died naturally. Remus' colleagues could hardly constrain their grimace – it was looking like a very enticing option.

There was though, a glimmer of hope. Remus had found a reference about soulscapes. Soulscapes were, as the name suggested, the very landscapes of the human souls. It was only a theory, that, Souls could exist on a plane adjacent to the physical one when the body was in a state of stasis of some sort. A layman would call it limbo. If it were true, it would also be theoretically be possible for people to willingly enter this plane, and selectively coax a part of a person, or, as in Harry's case, his soul without the parasitic attachment.

The man had found a lot, and in his desperation had gone about hunting down every reference he could get his hands on. It was neatly written, but there were more cold leads and dead ends than anything they could work with. Several possible hints or solutions needed further development and work to make them elegant solutions. It was going to be really hard work.

There still remained the matter of Ravenclaw's Shield. They were without any clue regarding where it was, or where it would be. It was a matter of great worry, coupled with the matters of the absconding Barty Crouch Junior and a partially resurrected Voldemort, and Harry's scar.

* * *

The school term had ended early owing to the various deaths and the Hogwarts Hysteria. It was not much, just one week more than the last time around. But what a difference a week made. Allowing for two weeks of holidays, and starting from the final quarter of June, the quartet worked on the exorcism, to little effect, while Moody started the training for the younger group. By this time Hogwarts had been completely cleaned, so the parents of the participants were present as well at the school.

* * *

Moody was rather pleased with Harry's skills and decision making ability. This wasn't meant to reflect poorly upon the others, but rather to be used as a training exercise of sorts. He had quickly sussed out that if he underpowered his spells quite a bit, he could use Potter to explain the non-spell aspects of the fights. He had tested the boy. Apart from the fact that his power was not up to his standard – he was just fourteen compared to the middle-aged, seventy three –year-old Moody – it was obvious that not only had he taught Potter, but more importantly, Potter had learnt from him. He could truly say that for very few of his protégés.

 _The first day, he had not allowed even one of greenhorns to touch their wands. As the lone voice of reason in the department supporting physical fitness in his academy days, Alastor had been the butt of jokes – till he became the most accomplished dueller of his batch, and also of many before or after him. That was what he expected of the idiots._

 _The moment he had ordered them to leave their wands, Potter had stripped off to a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, had lugged two stones of roughly equal mass to the old Auror and waited patiently for him to transfigure them into ankle-weights before strapping them on and taking off for four laps around the lake. Alastor had not passed the order, but the way the boy had reacted as if it were ingrained in him to obey the command told what Alastor wanted to know. It did not matter that Potter had collapsed halfway through the first round itself. By the memories, the last time he had done this was as a thirty-five year-old. At fourteen he did not have the strength in his still developing body._

 _The fact that Potter crawled back up and started again meant that Alastor cast any doubts and aspersions about their dedication that he had to the four winds. It was always nice to work with dedicated and enthusiastic students._

 _For all their declarations of solidarity and such, the other six – Luna, Hermione, Susan, Ginny, Ron and Neville – had huddled together and dropped off into deep sleep after roundly cussing at Mad-Eye and Harry, just before tea. Harry had paced the Great Hall till dinner and then some more, all the while talking to Sirius, who himself was building his strength. Both were dancing a weird jig with waving hands to keep the appendages working. Had either of them fallen asleep, so would have their muscles. Preserving their biological cycles otherwise was of great importance. It was going to be a challenge to keep spirits and the determination up for two weeks. Most people managed to get things into stride by then._

 _At dinner the first night, Ron so very wanted to eat everything he could touch. Unfortunately, the pull-ups and push-ups he had been forced into (only two sets of fifteen twice that day – he was a pureblood, which was a codeword for lazy) meant that he could barely move his arms. He had ended up inhaling porridge by the gallons. The others were not in any better shape. Hermione had spent the first two days casting filthy glares at Harry. Those glares had their potency marred by the pained grimaces._

 _By the end of the week, the grumbling group had successfully managed one whole lap around the lake. Harry himself had soldiered on to three. He was not going to mollify the others. The way he saw it, if the Shield was obtained soon enough, there would not be any war on the horizon. He was preparing for war, not participating in a summer camp. He was slightly disappointed, but then he realised that he was a grown-up man when working, while the others really were kids all the time._

 _It was only by the end of the second week that anyone was allowed to touch their wand at all. That was a big achievement with Mad-Eye._

 _And thereafter, it was disappointment again for Hermione, who wanted to learn new spells and for the others who mostly were excited at the prospect of getting to do magic more than their peers could. They were working with the disarming spell. After ten minutes of uncooperative behaviour, Harry had stomped over to Luna, who was the second most vocal protestor after Ron, and disarmed her thrice. The first time, she was merely disarmed. The second time, her hand and wand were so forcibly ripped apart that she wailed in pain. The third time, she was thrown away five metres. Not a single word was spoken, as Harry had cast non-verbally._

 _Nobody protested after that. After thirty hours of training with that one spell, which would make disarming an opponent and causing more damage if required with acute control an automatic response, Mad-Eye progressed to the basic cutting spell._

The training was brutal, but none of the 'victims' could complain about its efficacy. They had each grown quite a lot and had developed well. More importantly, their reflexes were truly top-notch for their age – and that was quite a thing, given that a majority of the lower rung Death Eaters were considerably less skilled and could easily be compared to street rowdies.

Hermione's parents had been most vocal in that regard.

 _"_ _You look...great, kitten," Agatha had remarked. In her memory, this was more physical exercise than Hermione had engaged in through all her previous years. Unfortunately, she was standing behind her daughter, who immediately crouched and pointed her wand at the speaker. Agatha gasped and then said in awe, "What stupendous reflexes!"_

 _Hermione regained her breath as well, and replied, "Necessity, mum, drives us all."_

Gone was the baby fat from the bodies of the teens. They were now looking exactly like young trainees. They weren't yet warriors, not by a long shot. Yet their chances of survival had jumped up exponentially. It was easily the best decision they and their parents had made.

Once he was sure of the training he had till then imparted Mad-Eye started teaching stealth and tracking, information collection, concealment and disguise, emergency evacuation procedures (they were not to engage under any condition. Their job was to help during an attack and shore things up behind cover till back-up arrived) and tactical training, including guerrilla methods. Ron soon learnt just how much chess was useful in that – it wasn't, at all. Things were not toned down to accommodate their ages. Death Eaters didn't work that way.

Even Harry knew that at the moment he was no match for any concerted effort by the enemy. Whatever he had done till then, while dealing with Death Eaters, had been based off the element of surprise. He was humble enough to acknowledge that, and that helped the others accept things easily as well.

* * *

For the exorcists, the known, reliable sources had been exhausted. Emissaries (Dumbledore and a few Aurors) had been sent to Knockturn Alley to raid the Dark Arts bookstores and known dabblers who nonetheless weren't public enemies, for more information. It had also given a valid excuse to raid and apprehend on suspicion, several of the sort that were enemies of the public. That hadn't yielded anything significant whatsoever. This had caused Sirius to have a massive, long-overdue meltdown. And Sirius' serious meltdown obviously included remarkable rudeness and crassness as a wrapping for his fear, worry and care for his godson.

 _"_ _I don't understand what is going on!" Sirius was in his rant mode. That meant that there was equal probability of him either making a statement most asinine, or throwing up a gem of an idea. The day was different. Sirius was going to do both in one go. After spending thirty minutes berating everyone he could find to apportion the blame to (he was rather deep in his cups that night) in their absence, he stomped out of his room and stood unsteadily in the Great Hall, facing the ritual committee._

 _"_ _Oh dear," muttered Remus. "He's been drinking again."_

 _"_ _You!" screamed Sirius, pointing at the four. "You are sitting he-here on your ar-arshes and getting nothing done. Why are you washting time after a ritual? What are you going to do to ensure that Voldemort never hash a body again?"_

 _There were no volunteers. That particular elephant in the room had been ignored in favour of keeping the timeline intact._

 _"_ _I th-thought sho. You know what? Ph-Fuck you all. I am not leshing my puff become dzagon food or whatever elshe equally shtupid thaz thaz Twir-Tridwi-Triwizard competition will thdow up. I have had enough of being locked up here. I am going to take down Bartshy and hish mashter."_

 _The next moment, though, Sirius was out cold on the ground. Remus had stunned him. "I am sorry Pads," the werewolf muttered. "But you seemed to be intent on taking yet another foolish decision that could've had you end up with unsavoury and probably permanent results."_

 _"_ _He is right, Remus."_

 _Remus spun in his seat to look in surprise at the diminutive Charms Master who had spoken. "WHAT?"_

 _"_ _Yes. We sit here, deliberating on a solution, waiting in anticipation of whatever changes Barty Crouch and You-Know-Who put up and trying to find the Shield. The truth of the matter is that this puts too many people at risk. Bertha Jorkins should be embedded with a trace, if she hasn't already left. We don't know if any more of those pieces can be made..."_

 _"_ _They can't. He reached the limit. He is one greedy bugger. Any more attempts and his existing conscious soul disintegrates – provided of course that the Shield was already made in this timeline and the last," interjected Remus. That was something they hadn't even considered._

 _"_ _Well thank Merlin for small mercies," Filius replied in slight relief. "As Sirius says, what's the point of letting You-Know-Who run amok, exactly? All things considered, as we know for a fact that Crouch has some of the traitor's memories, we have to move to make them redundant. Tell me Albus, we saw Harry tell you about the dreams regarding the homunculus. Would you have discussed those matters with Severus?"_

 _Albus sat in pensive contemplation. "I can now categorically say that I wouldn't. But I do not know how much of that stance would be influenced by hindsight and the knowledge that Harry has brought from the future." He received frowns in response, so he had to further defend himself. "I thought him to be truly remorseful of his actions, and he was the one who had told me that Tom had found out about the prophecy and was targeting the Potters and the Longbottoms. He was Lily's friend. At the time, I honestly believed that the information was to help protect them."_

 _"_ _Why them?" asked Remus. "I mean, even the Bones girl was born on the 30_ _th_ _of July, so that is as the seventh month dies, isn't it?"_

 _"_ _I admit I did not think of that at the time. My first instinct was to mobilise the two families towards protection – as much as I could provide, and for what it was worth."_

 _"_ _Your intentions were good, but your informant was compromised to start with. Before he killed you, Snape gloated how he himself was the hobbling, disguised wretch who had heard the prophecy outside the door," informed Harry._

 _"_ _Oh." He felt horrible, really. Mistake upon dreadful mistake had been made – and in supporting the traitor, he had made the criminal mistake of letting Sirius rot in prison. The two actions might not be related, but regret isn't always rational. It was something the people around him ensured he would be reminded of all the time. As anyone with half a brain knew, being reminded of one's mistakes – especially the ones that the person has accepted – every waking moment was the worst punishment. "All the same, Filius, what were you proposing?"_

 _"_ _We make a list of his potential hideouts. Between the people present at the moment, and given his precarious state as a homunculus, he will not be able to put up much of a fight. We can of course subdue him with a petrifaction or the Draught of Living Death or something else similar till we can find a permanent solution. Crouch has no reason to believe that we will take the offensive – or to even believe that he is not the only one with the gift from the future. That's exactly what Sirius was proposing."_

It had been put forth to Moody who had growled and grunted in approval. It was absolutely necessary for Harry to be included in that mission, and for once, the scar was going to be used as Dumbledore had envisioned it.

* * *

"How long has it been since you last went camping, Dumbledore?" Sirius ribbed the Headmaster. With a completely trimmed beard and hair that was cut short to neck-length, Albus Dumbledore looked like an amiable old grandfather out camping with his grandson, sons and friends. Dressed in a tweed blazer, a simple shirt, cargo trousers and dragonhide boots, he actually looked every bit the part.

"Too long, young man!" exclaimed Albus. "I think it must have been at least a hundred years. I and my Melanie had gone off to the forest of Dean with our children and grandchildren. We had such a grand time!" The old man was grinning as he held his stick of fat-layered sausages over the campfire and roasted them to perfection and reminisced about those times.

Extensive grilling of every apprehended Death Eater had given them a set of probable hideouts with rather detailed descriptions. With Harry reversing the scar-trick on Voldemort, they had been able to narrow down to one of three places. The first had been barren. This was the second they were scouting, a small town twenty miles south of Dover. Mad-Eye, Remus and Harry were the other members of this party. Filius and Kingsley Shacklebolt were filling in for Mad-Eye as trainers.

Those three members were going around to shops and checking for a sudden increase in deliveries or one person buying a lot of grocery items, or anyone acting oddly. Just because there was a hideout in the vicinity did not mean that the fugitives would not use a proxy.

"You know, Sirius, I have really missed these simple pleasures. It's just been one war to the next for me. I'd been feeling tired, you know."

"Is there any particular reason why you are talking like someone nearing the end?" Sirius' tone was bored, but Dumbledore had over a hundred and thirty years of experience to discern the note of panic.

"My time is ending, Sirius. It is going to be the time for you all to step up. In fact it has been so for about three decades. You are all powerful magicals. This is the last battle. I can feel it in my bones. Soon I will be counsel at best, but not the leader. That is a position that your godson will take up. And you have to manage the politic well enough to ensure that he gets a good enough launch pad when his time comes."

"Headmaster?" gasped Sirius.

"Yes, m'boy. You are a Black. So you have inherited much information that Dorea and her sister Cassiopeia have collected on people. Your savviness was evident through your days as the Auror/Prankster in the first war. You have the power of public opinion and a very legal handle to manipulate the ministry with. Use it. Eventually, it will come handy. You all are the future, though you are not, personally, going to be the long-term leader. You will handle the transition."

Sirius was stuck dumb by those words.

"Think about it, Sirius. There is still a lot of time. I am going to be active for another five years at least, provided I am not taken out of the picture as Snape did last time."

Sirius had several grudges with Dumbledore, several things to be angry about. But in every situation, Dumbledore seemed to be the person he could shout at, he could be angry at or something like that and get away with it. It had never truly struck him that even he was about as old as Dumbledore's great-great grandson at best, had the Headmaster had a family left. That the man was old, and that there would be magical Britain beyond him, or one that would not have him involved in some way, was unthinkable. That he was the one required to handle the transition for when Britain switched from idolising Dumbledore to idolising Harry, made him feel very inadequate.

"I see that I have made you think a bit too far. It seems to have shaken you a bit. Never mind it, m'boy. Let me tell you a story about the time Aberforth and I had gone to the forest near our home when we were young..."

By the time the hunting party returned from a fairly successful hunt, Dumbledore was still going on, telling stories from his long life, while Sirius was doing his level-best to stay awake. On spying Harry and Remus, the man bounded up to them, just like his animagus form, with a truly despairing expression on his face. "You have to help me! He is insane! He is telling me story after story and won't stop! And he told me how he wooed his wife! That's just wrong! I don't want to know about ancient, prehistoric love stories!"

The grim expressions on their faces stopped the tirade.

"You have found them, haven't you?"

"Let's get to the camp."

Once the camp was secured to the satisfaction of everybody, Harry reported, "They are here. Barty raped a virgin whom he kidnapped last month and gave her a potion to ensure the birth of a male child, and another to accelerate the growth of the foetus. Voldemort has possessed the foetus. The poor girl is going to die. Sirlparl's ritual it is, for the homunculus, just like last time."

"Do you know the ritual?" Alastor asked Albus.

"I do. And it explains a lot. Should it be successful, we are doomed. This is the worst of all possible situations."

"Why?"

"Voldemort is going to be reborn, in every sense of the word. That is to say, the baby will be magical. And it will have a whole new soul which will be just the same as him..."

Sirius understood where the morbidity was leading to. "So he gets a whole soul to split. In theory he could create an infinite number of Horcruxes, and truly never die. He could just choose to be disembodied again and again." Remus blanched at the thought. In all his searches, never had it so occurred to him that Voldemort could simply take over a new soul and split it further.

"Bloody Merlin's loose hanging gardens and balls!" swore Harry. "We have to take him out before he can actually exercise any magic, don't we?"

"Yes. That's precisely the thing we have to do. Is the woman well as a mother? Her current state of health, I mean. At least as far as the eye can discern?" The man had dropped his grandfatherly persona and had assumed the one of the planner/general.

"They need the girl alive and well, till Baby-mort is born, I think."

"Can she be saved, Headmaster?" Remus asked. "She is only fifteen."

"Unfortunately, we can't say for sure, my boy," Dumbledore answered heavily. "We do not know the stage at which the foetus is. If it is well-formed, there is nothing that can save her if she remains in their clutches. Even otherwise, I would guess that Voldemort will want to take away her life-energy for himself. If I know it correctly, the baby will be ripped out of her alive. It is much like drinking unicorn blood. The creation of new life is sacred. They have perverted it. Even if she somehow survives her ordeal in their 'care', it will be kinder if she dies." Turning to the hunters, he asked, are there any active defences?"

"None that we could find," answered Remus. "We believe they haven't put any up apart from standard anti-pest and the like so as to not draw attention. Dover is a large thoroughfare for magicals wishing to go to the continent without long-distance portkeys, so there are quite a few of us here. But not many live in the area, so it would attract attention."

Albus nodded. "We will have to deal with Barty Crouch. Sirius, Remus, you are tasked with capturing him. They must need supplies, and obviously, Barty must either go out into the open to fetch them himself or Imperius someone to do it for him. Only capture him. We need to dose him up with Der Schmerzhafte Trank der Wahrheit and find out every single detail of their diabolical plan."

"The Painful Potion of Truth?" translated Sirius. "It works?" When everyone looked at him in surprise, he bit out, "What? My folks wanted to put me into Durmstrang. I was taught Russian and the Scandinavian languages as well!"

"Any false answer or half-truth or concealment or prevarication of any sort will render him into such a state as the Longbottoms for fifteen minutes. They don't feel pain. He shall feel nothing but that," Albus cut in and explained.

Mad-Eye grunted in agreement. "And what do we do about the lass?"

"We three shall secure her and take her to the Hospital Wing. I shall have Poppy to contact Wilma Goth. She will be dangerous as the possession of the baby is active. "

"She is a world renowned expert in Dark Rituals and Curses and combating them, isn't she?"

"Yes. She is also my youngest son's sister-in-law, but that is beside the matter. She will be able to assess the situation most accurately."

"Will do."

And with that they moved out.

* * *

Sirius was not a prankster for nothing. With time being a massive issue, waiting for the quarry to come out of the House was never going to be the option. Since Dumbledore had not given them any instructions regarding Barty's capture, he and Remus had come up with a plan that any Marauder of pedigree would have, just as easily. Paying a bunch of street kids five pounds each to throw stones and pebbles and do whatever else that such troublemakers usually did, was an inspired trick.

Barty came rushing and snarling out of the house, his wand raised. With way too much practice at reacting to that sort of a reaction, the kids scampered away, teasing the stupid man that small sticks didn't scare them. Barty didn't even have the time to turn around as he mouthed profanities. Two stunning spells got him in the back. A moment later, his captors trussed him up and whisked him away to the makeshift gaol set in the centre of the Great Hall.

* * *

"She is going to die." It was a grim pronouncement, but it was also the simple truth of the matter. "She was alive on potions and food. At least they were not cruel enough to starve her, but then again they needed her healthy." Lately, Dumbledore was feeling the effects of the years catching up with him quite a lot.

They had not bothered to stun the girl. She was an innocent after all. They had had to hear out all her unbridled, unrestrained and misplaced but not unwarranted angst, horror and profanities. Once she had exhausted herself, Dumbledore had put her under stasis and conjured a stretcher. Conjured objects couldn't be turned into Portkeys because it wasn't possible to cast high-level magic like portkey-making on them. So a stone was shaped into four rings which were hung onto each hold. Those were turned into portkeys.

It was grim, horrible and less dramatic an end to the escape saga than any of them had foreseen. The unfortunate side-effect was that Sirius got to gloat over it forever.

It was now time to end the war for once and for all.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Final Solution**

A/N: Thank you for your support through this story. Any similarity of names and situations in the story is purely incidental and accidental. This is JKR's sand, sandbox and playground that she is kind enough to let others use. A scene which is a precursor to lemons b/w H/Hr is included. There aren't any actual lemons – they are too young for that by about five years at least. I don't support or condone underage physical intimacy.

* * *

The atmosphere inside Hogwarts had turned very tense since the seventeenth of July, when the hunters had returned with their quarry. Neville had been extremely incensed to see the lone free man responsible for his parents' condition, even as Susan was incandescent about the subversion of the process of law. While strict restrictions were placed against any sort of interaction with the sedated prisoner, Neville had taken a crack at Crouch and had broken the man's jaw with a solid punch, much to his tutor's and friends' appreciation. That apart, nobody had reacted. There was no time for such frivolities as a single person's revenge.

It had taken Dumbledore the better part of two days to acquire Der Schmerzhafte Trank der Wahrheit. It was restricted as a Dark Arts item, and rightly so. It was the last resort for the truly desperate. Wilma Goth had also arrived within those two days. It was a good thing. She would know what questions to ask Crouch and would also know to counteract their plan.

The woman on the other hand, was in the Hospital Wing. As the foetus grew at about a rate six times that of normal, she seemed to sink further and further health-wise. By the end of July, with a week and a half to go, it was quite obvious that she was not going to survive the birth of the demon baby. It was horrible and there was no way out. It had caused everyone in Hogwarts (barring the Grangers – they had returned to their business; they did have money to earn and taxes to pay! They still visited and stayed over every night, though) to worry and grieve in their own way.

Molly Weasley, as a mother, couldn't fathom the idea of a birth as horrible as the one that was going to be, while Augusta and Mad-Eye, who thoroughly hated the Dark Arts, could do no more than seethe. It was not at all good for the people in the castle. So Sirius and Remus had brought out their act as Marauders and taken to being as funny as they could at every opportunity.

###

Once the original plans of manipulating the timeline while keeping it consistent with the previous one up to a certain point had been totally changed, thrown for a tizzy, and in Sirius' parlance, royally buggered up, and the terror duo had been captured (for at this point, the girl, Alia Bellworth was all but lost, and the being left was Baby-mort's mum) Harry had summarily withdrawn from any interaction with either of the prisoners.

Sensing the particularly bad reaction that Harry had to the girl, Dumbledore had set him the task of preserving and enchanting a copy of Harry Sr.'s consciousness. His pensieve had been loaned to the boy for that very purpose, though it was needed every now and then to dissect every sentence that Barty spoke, or to revise any new development regarding the exorcism.

Hermione had taken a more than passing interest in the matter. In her book, she was looking out for her own future as well. The life he had with her and the children were important factors. To her, that future, without the threat of war, and with peace and common welfare to which she contributed, was an ideal that she wanted to work towards. Somehow, she had ended up feeling the stirrings of love for Daniel, Michael and Luna, the children she would probably never have. That it had happened was proof for her that it was to all intents and purposes, a foregone conclusion. What teenage girl didn't hope and wish?

And therein lay her problem.

Objectively, within the group, everyone knew that in the future that Harry had come from, they had paired off. Barring Harry and her, nobody really _knew_ who had become close. Well, the parents did, but the younger people didn't. Harry had seen to that. The scenes of the future he had allowed them to see did not include the familial bonds. There were only passing comments which hinted vaguely at things to come. The reason was that Harry had no intention to install an idea into his friends' younger counterparts' brains. Ron and Ginny, who had been present when a definitive comment had been made, had later been memory charmed with Molly's consent.

With Hermione and him, though, the matter was absolutely different. He hadn't been able to hide their future relationship from her for even an hour. And she was sure that she reciprocated; something that was a cause for happiness for them both.

And she feared that.

There were no updates about the Exorcists' efforts to free Harry from his unwelcome squatter. Harry, in his enchanting and experience-sharing quest, had essentially written his memoirs. Most others would not have seen it, but to Hermione, it was becoming blatantly obvious that he was becoming resigned to his fate – and worse still, the thought actually cheered him because it would take both back to their family, the younger to Lily and James and the older to his wife and children. She found the very thought unbearable. Her Harry's place was with her.

So she had started becoming clingy and constantly sought physical assurance that he was still there. Slowly, but surely, her fear started building a different sort of desperation in her mind, and combined with her hormones which were already causing lots of chaos.

Matters finally came to a head on the 29th of July. Harry had just completed the memoir which included each situation as it happened, his thoughts regarding who or what went wrong, and his comments, conjecture and the hindsight thus gained, which he was going to 'upload' into a picture of him and which was going to be animated and lent a bit of sentience – as was the case for Wizarding Portraits. He was sat pensively at his desk, that evening after a long day of training, when Hermione decided to act.

She had thought long and hard about it, though not necessarily correctly, and had come to the conclusion that whatever way the situation evolved, she was going to be his in every way that mattered – mind, body and soul. She entered his room, intent on her objective. She was so intent, that she actually forgot to close the door.

"Harry," she whispered into his ear, as she threw her arms around him. Her heart was hammering away faster than several horses a minute and the hormonal thrill was supplemented by adrenaline as it egged her on to do something so completely out of character that it mightn't have been her at all.

Harry smiled and turned around a bit, just enough to give her a chaste peck on the lips. It was homely, and something that Harry did without any thought at all. Seeing her alive had become a plaster on the large, sore wound of seeing her dead. "How are you now, Love?"

"I am here, Harry," she whispered and nibbled at his ear.

"Hermione?"

"Yes Harry?"

"What's going on? What are you doing?"

"Don't think Harry," she commanded sultrily in spite of herself, as she straddled him. "Just feel." She gave his confused look a cursory glance before dismissing it and started to kiss him, and soon lost herself in it. Soon enough, her hands and his started wandering as they hadn't before for the nearly fifteen and fourteen year old couple.

They had kissed before in that timeline, but not like that. While she had straddled him, Harry had a split moment to see her state of dress – or rather, given her usual attire, her state of undress. She had been clad only in his Quidditch jersey which was two sizes too large for her.

The older Harry had experience with Hermione's more intimate behaviour as well. This, whatever it was, was one of those moments where her passionate side (and Hermione was passionate; in love, in thoughts and in her beliefs) overrode her calmer, more proper side. And this wasn't right. She wasn't even fifteen.

Harry was shocked to find himself groping her, as she was him. Her pale long legs were wrapped around him as she had moved sometime during that heated kiss. He loved her, he truly did, but this wasn't love. This was desperation; this was fear. Checking the progress of his hands – which had crept over to naked skin – within the moment, he drew back and non-verbally demanded an explanation from her.

It had taken Hermione a lot for her courage to override her compunctions, and now that she had managed it, it was difficult for her to control herself. With a whimper and a mew of frustrated disappointment, she drew back as she found herself being questioned. Why did he have to keep his head, damn it! It had taken her several deliberations with herself to gather her courage!

"What is it H-Harry?" she stuttered. "Why did you stop?"

"You know why I stopped, my queen. What were you thinking?"

"Harry!" she moaned in protest, drawing out his name, as she dove in to continue from where they had left off. His iron grip on her shoulders cut off that course of action.

"What is it Hermione? You know this isn't right!"

"Don't you want me?" Her tone was accusing and her eyes were like flint.

"Don't go that way. Don't try that on me. You know it won't work," he said in a gruff, stern manner. Unlocking her feet from each other, he shifted her so that she was sitting in his lap sideways. She was being stubborn and refused to relent.

With a sigh, Harry gathered her in an embrace and poured all his love for the girl into it. And he realised that was where things were different. A part – the younger Harry – of him so very wanted to continue. He, the older one who had dismantled the situation, though, thought of her as a girl and not a woman. All the same, he called on his fourteen years of experience as her husband to find out what was bothering her.

"Minnie," he said, as he caressed her. There was as much approximation of a particular way of saying it as he could muster. With Hermione, there was more than just words that worked. "Why?"

Hermione, who was stubbornly refusing to speak till then, melted. Burrowing her head in his chest, she started sobbing in right earnest. A full five minutes later, the tears had abated enough to allow her to speak. "They- they haven't found anything!" It came out as a wail, and was interrupted by a hiccup.

"Anything about what?" asked Harry. He had a good idea what, but it was necessary for her to let it out.

"The exorcism," she sobbed some more. "They haven't found anything that can help you, have they?"

"They haven't, yet," agreed Harry. "So?"

"SO?" shrieked Hermione through a sob. "SO I DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU!"

"I know."

"How would you know?" she asked bitterly.

"I lost my Hermione and our children, didn't I? Even the younger Harry has lost his parents, and even though neither of us remembers them, their absence has created a hole in our heart that nobody can ever truly fill. So I do know." As a sign of acceptance of that answer, he received a nod somewhere in his chest, even as she was shaking with silent sobs, both because of what she feared and in self-recrimination for what she was about to do. "What I don't understand is why you have given up hope?"

"They have been trying for so long, Harry..."

"And we have practically forever now, don't we? That was the objective of capturing them, wasn't it? The captures have bought time for them!"

"I KNOW! I KNOW THAT HERE!" she ground out, with a vicious jab to her temple. "But here," she said, pointing to her heart, "Here I see each new day that passes without a solution to be the one when they will give up!"

"Why would they give up? In fact, now there is more of a chance that they will succeed, isn't there? They no longer have to worry about any plans Voldemort might have, for everything is now in control. There is only the matter of ending it all. It will come in time. Haven't you seen the change in everyone?"

And it was true. Ever since the captures, every resident of the castle had become cautiously happy and optimistic. Sirius and Remus were practically treating the thought of pulling pranks on everyone, everywhere and everything, except the warded area where the prisoners were, their God given right. Mad-Eye and Augusta were often seen chatting away and laughing! Molly Weasley was Molly Weasley, and was entirely happy with the prospect of mothering everyone at Headquarters and within the castle. The younger cadre were inspired by the successful ambush and were working harder than ever. Minerva and Filius were hard at work, in search of a really good Potions Master and Professor. The positivity was infectious. Even the Ministry was caught in it, as the cleansing was going on at an earnest.

Even better news was obtained when Crouch, who had been told about each enchanted object that would resurrect the Dark Lord, had given the name of everything and place that the Horcruxes would be found as or at. The Shield was found on him. It turned out that Voldemort intended to make the Horcrux from the death of the twin of the very baby that he was possessing. Their estimate had been wrong, initially. There was a lot that potions could force in conception. Well, that wasn't exactly good news, but well...

"I have." Her voice was timid like a mouse.

"So why do something so, so un-Hermione-ish?"

"Because I am still afraid, okay!" she retorted. "I fear that they will give up. If not now, then a few years down the line. And I won't be able to bear that. I like you a lot, Harry. And knowing what you and your Hermione had, I want the same for my Harry and me!"

"I can understand that. I truly can." He blinked at her. This time she was sure that it was her Harry and not the grown-up man who was just as much a prick when it came to things not related to war, who was speaking. "I am really flattered Hermione, that I can be loved so much, that can be loved at all. Even better is the fact that a person as good, as great in every way as you are loves me. I don't truly know whether what I feel for you is love. But if it is, and I feel the same as that Harry feels for his Hermione, then it is, and I do love you."

He was glomped by the girl as she gave him a tremulous, watery smile.

"But," Harry continued, and this time, somehow Hermione knew that it was the older prick and her Harry who were both speaking with one mind, "we still don't understand why you did it."

She looked at him/them incredulously, before answering, "I wanted to be yours, completely, thoroughly. For whatever time we have, and for however long we have together, and beyond, I now can't imagine being with anyone else. I fear you being stripped away from me. So I want you in every damn way!"

"I still think you are barmy, though I was very happy with what we were doing," 'her' Harry finally replied, after staring at her for about a minute. She knew, for the older one didn't really smile. 'Her' Harry did. "But seriously, Hermione, I am surprised. It seems the only one who has given up on me staying alive is you."

Hermione reared back as if she had been slapped. "WHAT? HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?"

"Calm down, Hermione. Understand what he is saying." Again, it was the authoritative prick. "What he is trying to say is that you are seeing smoke where there isn't any. There is no need to panic." He blinked and 'her' Harry came to the fore. "Exactly! What were you thinking? Were you going to give me a vow to forever remember me, that you'd be mine forever? I wouldn't say no, but not when you fear that I'll die, or are under stress. We have a lot of time together. It is only the older me who'll be leaving."

"And what about when you keep behaving cheerfully all the time, and keep looking at us after every page you write in your memoirs?"

"Uh...that's actually older Harry. He is happy that he can go back to his family and friends, but he is going to miss you."

Hermione couldn't help it. She was already still sobbing, and this answer made her laugh out loud in relief. "You must think I am stupid!" she said with a sniffle. She had missed the obvious while trying to see more than others did. Sometimes the simplest things were the ones that were true and therefore ignored.

"I do, but I don't." She couldn't help but snort. "However, and we are both saying this in all seriousness, if such a situation comes to pass, do try to remember us, and name your firstborn after us. We want you to live a good, happy life. I, 'your' Harry will wait for you on the other side."

"What?" In all honesty, this was the sort of thing she had been expecting to hear from Harry. She couldn't see how she could be happy without him.

"Huh. Pranked you!"

"You idiot!" shouted Hermione as she swatted his arm repeatedly. She then sank into another embrace. It wasn't out of love actually. She was sure she would smack him in the face if she saw him grinning at her. "So you intend to be here with me?"

"Absolutely!" answered her Harry. "We have just been trying to find a way to let older Harry go to his Hermione and still keep a part of him for ourselves. I don't intend on letting Voldemort win."

"And he won't." Sirius was standing in the doorway, leaning on the jamb and grinning at his godson and his girlfriend.

"You made it a habit to emulate Snivellus, Padfoot?"

That slid the grin right off the old dog's face. "Hey!" he protested. "I was only listening to my smooth godpup trying to calm down his scared and clearly barmy girlfriend, and was waiting to intervene if he failed. Damn you pup! James wasn't as smooth at fourteen! Though, I must say, Lily would have been proud of you, and James would have wondered whether you were really his son if they saw you rejecting the advances of a beautiful girl."

He received a cheeky grin in response.

"And Hermione, I can understand what you were trying to do, though you are going to run three extra laps for that stunt. When you intend to do something like that, don't walk from the dormitory wearing just a jersey. Been there, done that, and all that stuff. And also remember to close the door."

Hermione could only blush and wonder at her own stupidity.

"Of course, being the responsible adult that I am, I haven't given you any pointers to pull that off. Also, to ensure that this doesn't get reported to your parents, you are going to grin and bear as you become the butt of pranks for the next few days."

"That's blackmail!" the clearly mortified girl nonetheless protested.

Sirius grinned widely. "Of course it is. I **_am_** a **_Black male_** , after all!"

Harry clapped sarcastically as Hermione groaned. "Great, now you have given the dog a new chew toy! We just about broke him out of the habit of his tired name pun, and now this!"

None of them could keep a straight face for long though, and they burst out laughing.

"Anyway," Sirius continued, once he had calmed down. "I really have seriously good news."

"Oh?"

"We have found a way to reclaim Harry's body from the shard."

Hermione bounced off Harry's lap and grabbed Sirius in a hug, practically squeezing the life out of him.

"Now, understand, this is not a hundred percent. There is a margin of fatal error. But this is the best we have."

That sobered her up immediately.

"The basic plan is to have Crouch kissed, but alive. He will work as a temporary container for either the pup's soul or Voldemort. We are performing the ritual on his birthday. The ritual will need two people to convince Harry to return – though why that is so, I don't know. At the moment, it is you and me, Hermione."

"And the danger is?"

"We aren't sure which soul will transfer to which body. Ideally, pup will return to his own body, and Riddle to Crouch's but there is always the probability that the reverse or worse can happen."

"What can be worse than that?"

"Riddle can possess either of us. We won't be exiting our bodies, so to speak, as Harry and Tom will be doing, but there is a margin of susceptibility."

"You are not doing this."

"And why not?"

"The susceptibility and risk to you is unacceptable."

"You don't get to decide that. Of us all, Hermione and I are the only ones who can coax you back. There is a component of love necessary for the ritual."

"Then rework it! Unless you have forgotten it, there has to be a component of self-preservation as well. I can coax Harry back into his body."

"That's where the problem is. You see, it is not only Voldemort who is possessing Harry's body. In a way, so are you, though it is your own in a way."

"I – What?"

"Yes. You see, the difference between active and passive possessions is the presence of a consciousness. Voldemort had a consciousness in conjunction with his piece in Quirrel. Till you came along, Harry was a two soul, one consciousness entity. Now, he has two consciousnesses related to the same soul and one parasite. The probable problem is that instead of you, it is him that will be released into the afterlife to your family."

Hermione and Harry both frowned, before Harry smiled mischievously.

"What?"

"I just think that it'd be a brilliant prank. His Hermione always called him a big kid. Having me around will drive her barmy!"

"Was James like this as well, Sirius? I wonder how Lily ever came around to liking him," Hermione asked scathingly as she rolled her eyes.

"She didn't for six years," Sirius replied. He wanted to scold the pup, but really, that was funny. He could almost picture a grown-up Hermione being frustrated by a younger Harry.

Ending the moment of mirth, Harry Sr. asked, "What if I guard and guide him? Am I allowed that much interference?"

"Yes. No. Probably. I don't know."

"And things just became crystal clear," came the rejoinder.

"My dear git of a godson, older one, specifically, you are always a magical rule-breaking situation by yourself. There are several things that can only be ensured via experiment, and you are the only available test subject fitting the criteria."

"So there is nothing else to do but try," Hermione summed up.

"No! Try not!" snarled Harry gutturally. "Do or do not! There is no try!"

He received a smack from Hermione for his trouble.

* * *

"Why is it always a ritual 'circle'?" Harry complained. "There are so many different shapes. Why does it always have to be a bloody circle?"

"It's okay Harry," Sirius consoled. "It's just easier to dance naked around a circle than a square or any other angular shape. No sharp turns, see."

"Why do I have the feeling, that you have tried that before?"

Sirius blushed. "I did. Stole my mother's cat's catnip, some myrrh and incense and lit it in the middle of a square, a triangle and a circle. The last was easiest. I was trying to create a ritual. I was eight."

This was the trigger for a round of nervous laughter. It was, after all, their version of barracks humour.

"Boys!" admonished Augusta, calling for discipline. She was going to be the chief priestess. "Circles represent cycles, Harry. With no starting and end, a circle continues forever. Most rituals which aim for permanent effects are performed inside circles for that very reason."

Dumbledore led Hermione and Sirius, each to one of the two circles that intersected with the larger one. Another circle with equal radius already had a soulless Barty Crouch Junior lying within. A feather from Fawkes, hair from the Thestrals and straps of birch, hazel, reed, elder, poplar and yew, were used to bind them all, according to the ogham significances. The chant was in Gaelic.

For Harry, who had survived being cursed with the Cruciatus by Voldemort no less than five times, this was pain that he had never encountered. He screamed and screamed and screamed and he barely registered Sirius and Hermione screaming for him as he lost all sense of time and space. When he next regained a modicum of consciousness, sense and understanding, he found himself in whiteness.

* * *

There was nothing, bar him and a snake that was writhing on the ground. He felt no sense of self, of being Harry Potter, or of having ever known life. He just was, wherever and whenever he was.

He looked down at the snake. It was black, he decided, though black was only a means to say it was everything this whiteness was not. It was in obvious pain. But what was pain? And why was it in pain? He felt so comfortable. So calm, happy. Why wasn't it so for the snake? Should he help it? He crouched to one knee and was about to touch it when his instincts screamed at him not to. Why?

The voices of his instincts gave him pause. He had heard the voices before, or so he felt. But that wasn't possible, was it? He had never known anything but the whiteness. And that led to the questions about himself. Who was he? What was he? He looked down to the whiteness beneath him. Then again, all directions were relative in this, whatever it was. It might have been him who was beneath the whiteness.

 _"Harry!"_

It was a voice, a whisper, so like the one of those of his instincts, yet different, older. What was a Harry?

 _"Stay away from the snake!"_

Why? But they were his voices. Should he trust them? And why was that thing called a snake? On balance, he decided to not touch it. Should he eat it? He felt something. Was that hunger? He could hunt. Before it could hurt him, he could stomp on its head and hurt it and then eat it. He was tempted.

Presently, there was a shift in the whiteness. And the temptation to eat the snake was overridden by a deep sense of foreboding.

"Harry." The voice was clearer. It was closer. And it was the same. It was nice, familiar and it gave a feeling of home. What was home? He seemed to be thinking of words, but for him they held no meaning.

He turned in the direction of the voice, when once more his 'instincts' – another word which he knew had a meaning yet meant nothing – shouted to him not to. This time there was a deeper voice. A voice that he knew, and somehow wanted to obey. But why?

"Harry."

This time the voice seemed to come from within. It was the beautiful voice. He loved it. But it was younger. Why? Nothing made sense. He wished he could see the people of the voices instead of just hearing them. The whiteness was nice, but he was tired of it now. He wanted to know more, to be more. He felt a bit nervous.

" _Daddy!_ " Again there was the whisper that tugged at his heart. This time, there were more voices to draw his attention. These were younger, definitely. Hey felt like home as well. And they called him Daddy. What was a Daddy?

Finally, unbidden, the words came. "I can't see you. I want to see you all, all of you who call. But I can't. I want to feel you all, and to know who you are and to know who I am."

And those were the magic words. As if a curtain was drawn from both the whiteness and his mind, the being who felt like a Harry, became the two Harry Potters. He realised with a start that he was naked. And, he realised, as he looked around, so was his wife.

"Good grief!" he muttered as he verbally wished for clothes and hastily wore them, while at the same time also looking around for his younger self. "Damn it, Minnie! As much as I love seeing you this way, it makes me quite a bit awkward to be so attired in the afterlife."

"Then, you love-monster, it is what you wished to see! Ever since I and the kids got here, we have been clothed!" Hermione Potter snapped.

Harry looked sheepish and gave her the grin that turned her insides to jelly. But then again, she as a whole turned his brain to mush, so the scales were still tipped in her favour.

"So, how did they get you?"

Harry grinned widely this time. "They didn't. Ron, Gin and I found a way to travel back in time. We sent me back. This was us defeating Voldemort for the final time. We got all his pieces." He really was enjoying the look of utter shock on his best friend and wife's face. Even that was something to fall in love with. "And that reminds me, have you seen a 'me' who looks to be about fourteen? Sirius and young-you are performing a reworked exorcism. Young-me needs to be sent back to them."

"Bloody hell that was you?"

"Ron?"

"Yes, mate. Something went wrong, I am sure. As soon as we performed the ritual, and you collapsed, everything got destroyed. Next thing I know, I wake up to find my sister examining Luna's tonsils with her tongue and Lavender my kids swarming all over me!"

Harry cringed. "You know I love those two as my own sisters, but that was an image I didn't need." Ron seemed to agree to that. "So tell me, where was my younger self?"

"Last time I saw him, he was looking at a verbal tennis match between a ghostly-little Hermione and ghostly-Sirius, against one more Sirius, Lily, James and your kids. Michael had speared a black snake."

"How in hell do I manage to find myself in such trouble irrespective of the age?" Harry groaned rhetorically. "The snake came with the younger-me, did it?"

"Yes."

"That was the piece of Voldemort in him. Plans had to change quite a bit. Anyway, the good news is that we succeeded. Apparently, we changed the world so much with that act that the timeline could no longer exist and was destroyed explosively. I am not complaining."

"I agree mate. I am back with Lav and the kids. Couldn't ask for more, really."

The three made their way to where Ron had reported the squabble was taking place.

"Michael Dennis Potter, put that bloody thing down right this moment!"

"Daddy!" squealed three voices. In a trice, Michael, Daniel and Luna latched onto their father and were rejoicing.

Harry really wanted to celebrate, but other things really did come first. He put them down and turned to the squabblers.

"Sirius, Sirius, Hermione, Dad, Mum and everyone else, just shut up for a moment!" And they did. "Now listen up, you lot. Little Hermione, you take the Sirius that came with you and 'your' Harry out of here. Move on."

"But son, he is b–" started Lily and then looked askance at him. "Why are there two of you?"

"That's because he is supposed to be alive. I am supposed to be dead. You should be trying to send him back. Now what were you fighting about?"

"Well, you see, Padfoot here got the idea that since there were two of him, and you and your wife were teenagers again and we already knew that you had kids, that there must be some dark magic going on. The other Sirius was not having it and wanted to take Harry away without checking any of them," explained James and Lily, alternating their sentences in a way that the Weasley twins would have envied.

"Proves that he is an idiot. Padfoot, you are an idiot. No, not you Sirius with little Hermione. You, the godfather who was dicking about with the insane cousin. You are an idiot. I destroyed that timeline, and Mouldy-shorts is dead. We are sending them back there."

"Thanks, Harry. I didn't know I was such a prick!" he spat in his doppelganger's general direction.

"That's news to me, really," dead Sirius muttered, sarcastically. The live one was about to retort, but Hermione the younger gave him a smack on his head, and dragged both him and a very bemused and wholly confused younger Harry (ghostly forms could affect each other, it seemed) along to a door that she had clearly wished for in advance.

"Good Lord, Harry, but Sirius is such a drama queen!" Ron complained.

"Don't I know?"

* * *

A massive gasp sounded from Sirius, Hermione, and Harry, simultaneously. The former two groaned, while the latter sat bolt upright and touched his scar on reflex. There wasn't one.

"Am I me?"

"Yes. You are you, Harry."

"And a lot of help you were against your parents and Sirius. Damn it, you are such a drama queen!"

"He was. I am not!" The man could only protest with a groan. "Are we clear?"

"Yes." We have been monitoring you. All of you are you and unencumbered," answered Dumbledore.

"Thank Heavens!"

"No don't! The other you will gloat about it!"

And on that confusing, frustrating and fairly peaceful and a lot less dramatic note than would have been expected, the war against Voldemort ended with a whimper.

* * *

It took quite some time, but what portended to be a war that would test them all, ended up being a damp squib. Well, to the people of the living timeline, it did. To those who had passed on to the afterlife, including the older Harry, it was a bad life which they had all put behind them. Several of those who hadn't died in the future were now living in the knowledge that their younger counterparts would never have to live with the fear and sorrow as permanent companions.

Even the final killing of Voldemort was a matter of great show and pomp, but little of substance. There were photos of Dumbledore, Sirius and Harry together, which each of them grinned and bore through. The actions taken by Harry since his return to bring down an entire Dark organisation at just shy of fourteen were eulogised and he was the one who gave baby-mort the ceremonial push through the veil. For his trouble he was awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, making him the youngest recipient. Even the Potter and Weasley seats were elevated to hereditary status. Sirius' seat, which he intended to bequeath to Harry, was safe from having a rather clueless but tenacious Auror as its representative.

All of a sudden, there were questions asked which Harry simply had to have the answers of. It was nothing short of stupid. Voldemort, with his singular goal to be immortal and cause as much havoc as he could, was simply not a top-class dark lord, all things said and done. He diversified a lot, and never achieved the ideological notoriety of Grindelwald and his inclusivity. Pureblood propaganda had festered long before he came onto the scene and would do so – it was a part of human conditioning. Harry's temporary victory and his long-standing fame and acclaim would only serve to drive people from that agenda. Of course, people could always find something new to use as a cause for discord.

Nonetheless, when at the end of seven years, Harry, Ron, Susan and when her schooling ended, Ginny as well, moved to Auror Corps and trained, Wizarding Britain celebrated like they were the second coming. It was hilarious, from one point of view, and absolutely stupid from almost every other. Hermione chose to get within the system to create international awareness. She had taken the lessons that Dumbledore had learnt with reference to the ICW and the world's powers' reactions to heart and had chosen that as her profession.

It was not always smooth sailing, particularly as every new Dark Lord Wannabe wanted to pass the Hogwarts squad test, as it were. It was tiring and yet, with the way Harry's memories had shown their later years, they lived fairly unadventurous lives, just as Harry wished, for himself at least.

And, just because it needs to be mentioned, it may interest the reader, that apart from the war, the happy parts of the previous timeline replicated themselves. Neville and Susan followed the less dramatic and more romantic path to marital bliss and ran a successful chain of greenhouses. Susan helped manage the place in her spare time, and Neville freelanced as a reserve civilian combatant. Ron, the Auror, and Lavender, the correspondent with the Daily Prophet, were brought together in a way that would seem to make James' pursuit of Lily pale. Of course, his friends helped him in every way and therefore were largely hindrances. That they still ended up giving Harry Fabian, his godson, as Neville gave him Rhapsody his goddaughter was more than a minor miracle. Teddy Lupin, the metamorphmagus welcomed them to that exclusive group. As for Harry and Hermione, well, Ambassador Potter and her Auror husband were a very happy and unremarkably unruffled couple, with a happy family. They gave Minister Black his god-grandchildren. And they ensured that they kept things simple, and as unremarkable but successful in every way that mattered, as possible, and therefore happy, ever after.


End file.
